Roberta became a girl at once, a girl with a sincere nature and a tender heart. Reaching out a strong brown hand, she placed it kindly on the arm of her friend. "Dicky, boy, forgive me, if--if I was a little astonished and showed it. Truth is, for so many years I've thought of you as the playmate I could always count on to fight my battles, that I'd sort of forgotten that we were grown up enough to even think of marrying. Of course we aren't grown up enough yet to really marry, for you are only nineteen, and I'm worse than that, being not yet seventeen. And as for money, Dick, I'd like you heaps better if you were poor and working your way, but I know that you meant what you said most kindly. You wanted to save me from hard knocks, but, Dick, honest Injun, I revel in them. That is, I suppose I will. Never having had one as yet, I can't speak from past experience."