“No, indeed,” said the brown-eyed blonde; “I got twenty-two birthday gifts the other day on my twenty-second birthday.”
“Are you twenty-two? Why, so am I!” cried the girl with the classic profile.
“Just my own age, too,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“And mine; how odd!” cried the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“That is one of the advantages of the new womanhood,” said the president; “its beautiful candor. Now, I tell everybody that I am twenty-two years old.”
“I wish you would tell Mrs. Van Tompkins,” said the girl with the classic profile. “She wouldn’t take my word for it the other day, though I told her that I couldn’t be mistaken, as you had told me so at least six times in the last eighteen months.”
“Cora asked me the other day if there was any age qualification for membership in this club,” remarked the girl with the eyeglasses, during the slight pause which followed the last speech. “She says she has not yet celebrated her twenty-first birthday.”
“Born on the 29th of February, then, wasn’t she?” asked the brown-eyed blonde. “Yes, it is true that the new womanhood is breaking down old traditions. We are not at all jealous of each other now.”
“Of course not,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin; “we have learned to value our own attractions properly. Why, the other day I stopped Amy and Fred to tell her there was a dab of powder on her nose. Formerly another girl would have been jealous of her dazzling complexion, and let her go on as she was.”
“How sweet of you,” murmured the girl with the eyeglasses; “and yet, I doubt if she was really grateful.”