Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/43

 thought, cocking her beaky little nose. "She can be mean if she wants to, but she isn't going to make me mean!"

Which was partly due to that epic line of Ma'm Bazin's which often came to her memory when she thought of the spots on Micah's apples: "The sin which is buried at the foot of the tree, it shall make itself known in the fruit." So, instead of losing her temper, Charlotte simply gave her cousin a particularly old-fashioned look—and went for a walk to cool off.

That was the afternoon when she ran into the Boy Who Doesn't Count.

Charlotte had often noticed him. He was in his senior year at high school, and though he was the smartest boy in his class he wasn't at all homely, having one of those keen, wistful faces which go so well with curly hair. His name was Neil Kennedy, and perhaps because he had no mother, and perhaps because his father was seldom sober for two weeks