“Or one who does not know her own mind?”
“Well,” he observed, “those who have a great deal of mind do not always know it all. Just as you think you know it some new corner comes up that you didn’t suspect and upsets everything.”
“Am I femanine?” I then demanded, in an anxious manner.
“Femanine! If you were any more so we couldn’t bare it.”
I then inquired if he prefered the clinging Vine or the independant tipe, which follows its head and not its instincts. He said a man liked to be engaged to a clinging Vine, but that after marriage a Vine got to be a darned nusance and took everything while giving nothing, being the sort to prefer chicken croquets to steak and so on, and wearing a boudoir cap in bed in the mornings.
He then kissed me and said:
“Just a word of advise, Bab, from a parent who is, of course, extremely old but has not forgoten his Youth entirely. Don’t try to make yourself over for each new Admirer who comes along. Be yourself. If you want to do any making over, try it on the boys. Most of them could stand it.”
That morning, after changing another tire and breaking three finger nails, I remembered the overcoat and, putting aside my scruples, went through the pockets. Although containing no Burglar’s tools, I found a sketch of the lower floor of our house, with a cross outside one of the library windows!
I was for a time greatly excited, but calmed myself, since there was work to do. I felt that, as I was to capture him unaided, I must make a Plan, which I did and which I shall tell of later on.
Alas, while thinking only of securing the Reward and of getting Sis married, so that I would be able to be engaged and enjoy it without worry as to Money, coming out and so on, my Ship of Love was in the hands of the wicked, and about to be utterly destroyed, or almost, the complete finish not coming untill later. But