"Don't you remember what Käthi Graffenstein said about her aunt?"
"Pah!" cried Hertha. "Whatever she said about it would sure to be a lie."
The conversation ceased at this point, for, after Elly letting fall the much-hated name, Hertha refused to talk any more. But long after the light had been put out she lay awake pondering, and tried by various experimental thoughts to penetrate the veil which hung between her childlike outlook and life. The next afternoon she approached, with faltering step, kind grandmamma, whose wooden knitting-needles were busily employed on one of her favourite Shetland wool shawls.
"Have you an uneasy conscience?" asked grandmamma, who thought she knew what she wanted.
"God forbid! I only wish to know, am I properly grown up, or am I not?"
"Well ... half and half," suggested grandmamma, giving her a smiling scrutiny over her spectacles.
Hertha drew a deep breath. She had entered on a daring enterprise, she knew, but, at all costs, she must clear up this matter.
"I mean that I shall probably soon be married, and I----"
"You!" exclaimed grandmamma, in deadly terror.
The unhappy child had evidently come to break to her the proposal of some saucy youth in the neighbourhood.