“You are a most inexplicable girl, Mollie,” she said. “What crotchet is troubling you now?”
“No crotchet at all,” she answered, and then all at once she got up and stood before the mantel-glass, looking at herself fixedly. “Aimée,” she said, “if you were a man, would you admire me?”
Aimée gave her a glance, and then answered her with sharp frankness. “Yes, I should,” she said.
She remained standing for a few minutes, taking a survey of herself, front view, side view, and even craning her pretty throat to get a glimpse of her back; and then a pettish sigh burst from her, and she sat down again at her sister's feet, clasping her hands about her knees in a most unorthodox position.
“I should like to have a great deal of money,” she said after a while, and she frowned as she said it.
“That is a startling observation,” commented Aimée, “and shows great singularity of taste.”
Mollie frowned again, and shrugged one shoulder, but otherwise gave the remark small notice.
“I should like,” she proceeded, “to have a carriage, and to live in a grand house, and go to places. I should like to marry somebody rich.” And having blurted out this last confession, she looked half ashamed of herself.
“Mollie,” said Aimée, solemnly dropping her hands and her work upon her lap, “I am beginning to feel as Dolly does; I am beginning to be afraid you are going to get yourself into serious trouble.”
Then this overgrown baby of theirs, who had so suddenly astonished them all by dropping her babyhood and asserting herself a woman, said something so startling that the wise one fairly lost her breath.