Frank, sitting just behind the little girls, heard what they were saying, and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author-cards, looked up, and said, in her shy yet friendly way⁠—

“I’m afraid you are tired; can I do anything for you?”

“Talk to me, please; it’s dull, sitting by myself,” answered Frank, who had evidently been used to being made much of at home.

If he had asked her to deliver a Latin oration, it would not have seemed a more impossible task to bashful Beth; but there was no place to run to, no Jo to hide behind now, and the poor boy looked so wistfully at her, that she bravely resolved to try.

“What do you like to talk about?” she asked, fumbling over the cards, and dropping half as she tried to tie them up.