"Why can't we keep them babies!"
"Betty thinks we do," said his wife.
"One boy at College, and one girl coming out! It's overwhelming. We were only married yesterday, you know," said poor Mr. Leighton.
It troubled Mrs. Leighton that Mabel insisted on wearing heliotrope. She had white of course for her coming out dress, and among other costumes the choice of colours for a fine day gown. The blue eyes of the Leightons were gifts handed down by a beneficent providence through a long line of ancestors, and one wise mother after another had matched the heavenly radiancy of these wide orbs as nearly as possible in sashes and silks for the children. Therefore Mrs. Leighton begged Mabel to have at least that one day gown in blue.
"I begin to be sorry I said you might have what you liked," she said dismally. "Heliotrope will make you look like your grandmother."
"Oh no it won't," clamoured Jean. "It will only make her look like Adelaide Maud."
"Traitor," was the expression on three faces.
Sporting Jean had really rather a dislike to the garden-party smartness of Adelaide Maud, and occasionally prejudice did away with honour.
"I'm joking," she said penitently. "Do let her wear heliotrope, mummy."
Mrs. Leighton sighed amiably yet disappointedly, but at last gave Mabel permission to wear heliotrope. They had patterns from Liberty's and Peter Robinson's and Woolland's in London, and a solid week of rapture ensued while Mabel saw herself gowned in a hundred gowns and fixed on none.