"I forgot to tell you the news; our Presbytery guest isn't coming till to-morrow. They sent us word just this afternoon—and they're almost sure it's going to be an elder."
"Then 'it' will have to go in the attic," I rejoined, shouting the opprobrious pronoun up the stairs.
"Helen, dear," the tender voice remonstrated, "how can you speak like that—calling him 'it.' That isn't respectful, child."
"It's your word," responded I; "you said it's going to be an elder."
"But I didn't actually call him it," my mother defended. Her answer was rather long in coming; I could tell she was struggling with the verbal problem.
"Oh, well, I beg his pardon," I conceded; "anyhow he won't care what we called him, when he strikes the attic," and the argument ended in a duet of laughter.
"And, Helen," resumed my mother, by this time one or two steps down-stairs, "don't you think you'd better dress? Mr. Giddens ought to be here right soon now, shouldn't he? I think you ought to wear your pink organdy—he says he loves you in pink, you know."
"He ought to love me in buckskin," I flung back, "if he loves me at all. He ought to love me for my own sweet self undecorated—you see, mother, how romantic you're making me. If he's really got the frenzy he won't need any pink things to infuriate him," I insisted, laying Spanish bull-fights under tribute.
"Please yourself, child," my mother responded as she disappeared, "but I know, when your father was courting me——"
"You ought to write a book on the subject, mother," I interrupted gaily; "you've evidently had it down to a science. If you'd write a book and call it 'First Principles of Courtship' or 'Love-making for Beginners' you'd help things on a lot." But by this time mother was beyond the range of conversation and my literary counsel met with no response.