Her eyes lit up then. They really were fine eyes, although she was—I could not help feeling it—a most provoking girl.
“That would be paradise,” she said. “But that can never happen. It never does happen. Men like your marvellous, your wonderful father have commonplace children like you. Now I, who have all the instincts and all that soul within me that just burns for books, and books alone, have a painfully commonplace mother. It is a mixed world. It is painfully mixed.”
“Well, at any rate let us be chums,” I said, for the Swans were getting nearer and nearer.
“Oh, as you please, Dumps. But you mustn’t interrupt my work; I always avoid having a girl chum, because she is sure to interrupt. If you like to walk with me in recess you may.”
“Oh, I should, Augusta—I should! I find the other girls so chattery and so queer. I don’t understand them.”
“Well, naturally, to-day they’re excited,” said Augusta.
She looked full at me.
“What about?” I said.
“Why, about you.”
“But why in the world about me? What has happened to me? Have I grown—grown beautiful?”