Elizabeth had not given up playing with dolls, but her favorite was a lovely being named the Lady Adelaide. She figured in many a romance, sometimes reaching the dignity of a throne, and sometimes being obliged to earn her living by singing in the streets. Paper dolls, however, afforded Elizabeth more amusement and she was always eager for the first choice of the colored plates in a fashion magazine. Over these she and Babs had many a squabble, for Elizabeth was still so much of a child as to consider these playthings very important and could not see why she should give up to Babs, so at last Mrs. Hollins had to make the rule that Elizabeth was to have the pages of one periodical and Babs the other.
After Babs had taken her departure from the room where she had been singing “Bright Alfarata,” Elizabeth returned to her book. Presently she gave a long sigh which attracted her mother’s attention.
“What is it, daughter?” she asked. “That was a very big sigh for a little girl.”
“I am thinking about my weekly theme,” returned Elizabeth, “and I can’t make up my mind which to write about—lynxes or daddy-long-legs.”
“Those seem to me rather queer subjects,” said Mrs. Hollins, looking puzzled. “Did Miss Jewett give them to you?”
“Oh no, I thought of them myself. She said not to take any ordinary thing, like Spring or Happiness or such to write subjects, but to try to be original.”
“Just what do you mean by ‘to write subjects’?” asked Mrs. Hollins.
“Why, subjects to write about, I suppose; that is what Miss Jewett said: ‘to write subjects.’”
Mrs. Hollins laughed. “I suspect you haven’t quite the right idea. There is such a word as trite. You go and look it up in the dictionary and see if you don’t think it is the word Miss Jewett used.”
Elizabeth obeyed, bringing the big dictionary and opening it before her on the window-seat. She turned over the pages, murmuring to herself, “t-o-t—t-r-a—t-r-i,—here it is. ‘Trite, worn-out; stale; common.’ Of course that was what she meant. I’m glad you explained it, mother. Lynxes or daddy-long-legs wouldn’t be trite, would they?”