"Show us your love-letter, won't you, darling?" she said persuasively.
"Certainly not," replied Millie at once.
"Then I won't show you my notes from Freshfield," said Gwen.
"Of course not. It's mean to show men's letters."
"We shouldn't do such a thing, except just among ourselves," replied Maddie indignantly; "and we hoped you'd be one of us, though goodness knows there's more than enough of us already."
"Look here," said Gwen eagerly, "we know you must be the real kind of natural girl—not the sort like mother believes in, Ethel May in the Daisy Chain, you know—we know you are not that sort, or you would not be having lovers to write to you all the way from Africa. You do like pretty clothes, and dancing, and young men—"
"No, I don't," said Millie, in her decided way. "I've had enough of young men to last me a good while. I want to see no more young men for years to come. I only want one thing really badly"—she looked almost pleadingly at Tommy's red, snub-nosed countenance, as if her sole hope lay there—"I want to learn!" cried out the girl who was to corrupt the Vicarage household.
"To learn!" The words were echoed in six different tones.
"Not lessons?" asked Babs incredulously.
"Everything," replied Millie, resting her pointed chin on her small hand. "I want to know things, and understand them, and find out how to earn my living; to do something ... or make something ... I don't know what, as yet. I want to get a grip on the world, and watch for my place there, and take it!"