cherry Ripe Author:Helen Mathers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Me ?" You r " Somebody in love with Me ?" " Somebody in love with you !" " Not a school-boy, or the sexton, or the postman, or the chimney-sweep ?... more »" said Mignon, her eyes growing rounder and rounder as she looked at Prue. "No, miss, a gentleman." '- Grown up ? out of jackets ?" " La! yes, miss, in tails. Looks as if he'd been born in 'em." " Prue," said Mignon, in a tone of disbelief, " are you joking ? Are you making all this up because I said I thought I should like to have a sweetheart ?" " No, miss, it's gospel truth." " What an extraordinary thing !" said Mignon, drawing a deep breath, " what an altogether outrageous thing—to fall in love with me, of all people in the world ! And where on earth did he do it, and what could have inspired him with the gigantic idea f " It was at Hampton Court, miss," said Prue, "and so far as I can make out, it's the very gentleman as you and Miss I,u-Lu nearly upset in the avenue." " I certainly made an impression upon him," said Mignon soberly, " and on his hat, and his shins, or I am very much mistaken. Are you quite sure, Prue, that he is not pretending, just to pay me out for being so rude to him ?" " No," said Prue, nodding impressively, " he's in earnest, there's no mistake about that" " And indeed," said Mignon, " I am beginning to think he must be, to do anything so desperate as to write me a love- letter ! Why, Lu-Lu never had one in all her life, and she is seventeen years old, and we should both have been so much obliged to any one who would write us one, just to see what it would be like!" Prue, looking down on her needlework, smiled. Miss Sorel's school was a well-ordered one; the supervision of letters was strict "If only," said Mignon, emerging from her trance of amazement with a...« less