"I don't like it," said Jack; "it always looks as if it was taking notice, and reflecting how dreadfully small one is."
"I used to think Vivy was like that," said Dodo. "She was very good to me once or twice. I wonder what I shall be like when I'm middle-aged. I can't bear the thought of getting old, but that won't stop it. I don't want to sit by the fire and purr. I don't think I could do it."
"One won't get old all of a sudden, though," said Jack; "that's a great consideration. The change will come so gradually that one won't know it."
"Ah, don't," said Dodo quickly. "It's like dying by inches, losing hold of life gradually. It won't come to me like that. I shall wake up some morning and find I'm not young any more."
"Well, it won't come yet," said Jack with sympathy.
"Well, I'm not going to bother my head about it," said Dodo, "there isn't time. There's Maud and her little Spencer. He's a dear little man, and he ought to be put in a band-box with some pink cotton-wool, and taken out every Sunday morning."
Dodo whistled shrilly on her fingers to attract their attention.
Mr. Spencer had been gathering flowers and putting them into a neat, little tin box, which he slung over his shoulders. He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket carefully buttoned round his waist, with knickerbockers and blue worsted stockings. He wore a small blue ribbon in his top button-hole, and a soft felt hat. He carried his flowers home in the evening, and always remembered to press them before he went to bed. He and Maud were sitting on a large grey rock by the wayside, reading the Psalms for the seventeenth evening of the month.
Dodo surveyed her critically, and laid herself out to be agreeable.
"Well, Algy," she said, "how are the flowers going on? Oh, what a sweet little gentian. Where did you get it? We're going to have some theatricals this evening, and you must come. It's going to be a charade, and you'll have to guess the word afterwards. Jack and I are going to look at the sunset. We shall be late for dinner. What's that book, Maud?"