"He doesn't seem old to me. I like hair--that shade."
There was silence for some seconds; then Frances said:
"Do you know, Dorothy, I've come to the conclusion that you're going to be a beautiful woman."
"Frances! How can you be so absurd? Please don't be silly!"
"And do you know, at the convent I never even guessed you were going to be pretty. It never dawned on me till that morning when I saw you standing on our lawn. Then I said to myself: 'I do believe that girl's going to be beautiful'; and now I'm sure of it."
"If I'm going to be--I notice you use the future tense--pray what are you now?"
"Oh, I'm pretty; I know exactly what I am; I've no delusions. I once heard mother say to an aunt of mine--she didn't know I heard, but I did--'Frances is the sort of girl to make a good man happy'--and that's exactly what I am: prettiness of my kind runs in the family; Jim's a pretty boy. But you--yours is going to be the kind of beauty men rave about; and I don't call it fair."
"I never imagined you could be so ridiculous. What don't you call fair?"
"That a girl should have both beauty and gold. One or the other, but not both. Think of the quantities of quite respectable girls who have neither. Why, I myself know heaps--plain and penniless. Dorothy, it's tragic for a girl to be like that; you mayn't know it, but it is. Fortune ought to share out her gifts with a more equal hand: she shouldn't give one person so much more than her proper share."
"I'm not in a mood for jesting. Your brother said I was a simple girl."