Her disposition, however, was vivacious, and she liked this self-reliant, self-sufficient, straight-spoken boy.
One day, after an exchange of glances from time to time, he said, with a smile and the courage that was innate in him: "You live up my way, don't you ?" "Yes," she replied, a little flustered--this last manifested in a nervous swinging of her school-bag--"I live at number one-forty-one." "I know the house," he said.

"I've seen you go in there.

You go to the same school my sister does, don't you?
Aren't you Patience Barlow ?" He had heard some of the boys speak her name.

"Yes.

How do you know ?" "Oh, I've heard," he smiled.