"Did you ever see such eyes!"
"Does he curl his mustache, or it is natural?"
"Why didn't you tell us he had a dimple in his chin?"
"Does he always wear those clothes?"
Mae was divided between curiosity and anger. She snatched the photograph away, cast one glance at the languishing brown eyes, and tumbled it, face downward, into a bureau drawer.
"Don't ever mention his name to me again!" she commanded, as, with compressed lips, she commenced brushing her hair for dinner.
On the next Friday afternoon—shopping day in the village—Patty and Conny and Priscilla dropped in at the florist's to pay a bill.
"Two bunches of sunflowers, one dollar," the man had just announced in ringing tones from the rear of the store, when a step sounded behind them, and they faced about to find Mae Mertelle Van Arsdale, bent on a similar errand.
"Oh!" said Mae, fiercely, "I might have known it was you three."
She stared for a moment in silence, then she dropped into a rustic seat and buried her head on the counter. She had shed so many tears of late that they flowed automatically.