to summer and every one away. When she would let me in, which
was not often, as she said I made her head ache, I tried to turn her
thoughts to marriage or to nursing at the War, which was for her own
good, since she is of the kind who would never be happy leading a simple
life, but should be married.

But alas for all my hopes. She said, on the day before we left, while
packing her jewel box:

"You might just as well give up trying to get rid of me, Barbara.
Because I do not intend to marry any one."

"Very well, Leila," I said, in a cold tone. "Of course it matters not to
me, because I can be kept in school untill I am thirty, and never come
out or have a good time, and no one will care. But when you are an old
woman and have not employed your natural function of having children to
suport you in Age, don't say I did not warn you."

"Oh, you'll come out all right," she said, in a brutal manner. "You'll
come out like a sky rocket. You'd be as impossable to supress as a
boil."

Carter Brooks came around that afternoon and we played marbels in the
drawing room with moth balls, as the rug was up. It was while sitting
on the floor eating some candy he had brought that I told him that there
was no use hanging around, as Leila was not going to marry. He took it
bravely, and said that he saw nothing to do but to wait for some of the
younger crowd to grow up, as the older ones had all refused him.

"By the way," he said. "I thought I saw you running a car the other
day. You were chasing a fox terier when I saw you, but I beleive the dog
escaped."

I looked at him and I saw that, although smiling, he was one who could
be trusted, even to the Grave.

"Carter," I said. "It was I, although when you saw me I know not, as
dogs are always getting in the way."

I then told him about the pony cart, and the Allowence, and saving car
fare. Also that I felt that I should have some pleasure, even if
SUB ROSA, as the expression is. But I told him also that I disliked
decieving my dear parents, who had raised me from infancy and through
meazles, whooping cough and shingles.

"Do you mean to say," he said in an astounded voice, "that you have
BOUGHT that car?"

"I have. And paid for it."

Being surprized he put a moth ball into his mouth, instead of a gum
drop.

"Well," he said, "you'll have to tell them. You can't hide it in a
closet, you know, or under the bed."

"And let them take it away? Never."

My tone was firm, and