“Because they read so much; everything they can get hold of, including, possibly, a very revised edition of ‘Arabian Nights’?”
“Yes,” laughed Mae, “and my first novel, ‘Villette.’”
“You go to a play for the first time now,” suggested Norman. “How you clasp your hands and wink your eyes and bite your lips! And next day, in front of your mother’s pier-glass, how you scream ‘O, my love,’ and gasp and tumble over in a heap in your brown calico, as the grand lady did the night before, in her pink silk.”
“Brown calico, indeed! I never condescended to die in my own clothes, let me assure you. The garret was overhauled, and had been since I was a mere baby, for effective, sweeping garments. Let us hurry along over fourteen and fifteen. I was sentimental and tried to be so young-ladyish then. I used to read history with Albert, and always put on both my gloves when I started out, and had great horror of girls who talked loud in the street. I learned to make bread, and shirt bosoms, and such things.”
“Well, here you are in a long dress, Miss Sweet Sixteen. I remember you home from boarding school on a vacation.”
“What did you think of me?” asked Mae, “didn’t we have a nice time that summer? O, how silly I was!”
She hurried on, because the eyes had given her that peculiar look again, which put her heart in a tremble. “I did have a beautiful time at boarding school,” she continued, “the darlingest principal and such girls.”
“Then I suppose you wrote a salutatory in forlorn rhyme to end off with,” laughed Norman, “and read it, all arrayed in white, in a trembling voice, and everybody applauded, and even old Judge Seymour admired it, while you were reading, with your pink cheeks and trembling hands and quivering voice.”
“Abominable! I didn’t have the salutatory, and the girl who did, read a superb one, as strong and masculine—”
“Then the Judge went to sleep, I’m sure,” declared Norman.