“‘Oh, isn’t he too old for a lover?’ I said.
“Beautiful Alice laughed and said it was forty years since he had been her Aunt Una’s lover. He had been a tall, handsome young man then, and her Aunt Una was a beautiful girl of nineteen.
“We went over and sat down and Miss Reade told me all about her. She said that when she was a child she had heard much of her Aunt Una—that she seemed to have been one of those people who are not soon forgotten, whose personality seems to linger about the scenes of their lives long after they have passed away.”
“What is a personality? Is it another word for ghost?” asked Peter.
“No,” said the Story Girl shortly. “I can’t stop in a story to explain words.”
“I don’t believe you know what it is yourself,” said Felicity.
The Story Girl picked up her hat, which she had thrown down on the grass, and placed it defiantly on her brown curls.
“I’m going in,” she announced. “I have to help Aunt Olivia ice a cake tonight, and you all seem more interested in dictionaries than stories.”
“That’s not fair,” I exclaimed. “Dan and Felix and Sara Ray and Cecily and I have never said a word. It’s mean to punish us for what Peter and Felicity did. We want to hear the rest of the story. Never mind what a personality is but go on—and, Peter, you young ass, keep still.”
“I only wanted to know,” muttered Peter sulkily.