't you? I am. I do like an agreeable man, and I don't mind saying
so."

"I've observed that," said Rita, still laughing.

"Of course you have. I've spent too many years without them not to enjoy
them now--bless their funny hearts!"

"I'm glad there are no men here," observed Rita.

"But there are men here," said Valerie, innocently.

"Substitutes. Lemons."

"The minister is superficially educated--"

"He's a muff."

"A nice muff. I let him pat my gloved hand."

"You wicked child. He's married."

"He only patted it in spiritual emphasis, dear. Married or single he's
more agreeable to me than that multi-coloured drummer. I let the
creature drive me to the post office in a buckboard, and he continued to
sit closer until I took the reins, snapped the whip, and drove at a
gallop over that terrible stony road. And he is so fat that it nearly
killed him. It killed all sentiment in him, anyway."

Rita, stretched lazily in a hammock and displaying a perfectly shod foot
and silken ankle to the rage of the crocheters on the veranda, said
dreamily:

"The unfortunate thing about us is that we know too much to like the
only sort of men who are likely to want to marry us."

"What of it?" laughed Valerie. "We don't want to marry them--or anybody.
Do we?"

"Don't you?"

"Don't I what?"

"Want to get married?"

"I should think not."

"Never?"

"Not if I feel about it as I do now. I've never had enough play, Rita.
I've missed all those years that you've had--that most girls have had. I
never had any boys to play with. That's really all I am doing
now--playing with grown-up boys. That's all I am--merely a grown-up girl
with a child's heart."

"A heart of gold," murmured Rita, "you darling."

"Oh, it isn't all gold by any means! It's full of silver whims and
brassy selfishness and tin meannesses and senseless ideas--full of
fiery, coppery mischief, too; and, sometimes, I think, a little
malice--perhaps a kind of diluted deviltry. But it's a hungry heart,
dear, hungry for laughter and companionship and friendship--with a
capacity for happiness! Ah, you don't know, dear--you never can know how
capable I am of friendship and happiness!"

"And--sentiment?"

"I--don't--know."

"Better watch out, sweetness!"

"I do."

Rita said thoughtfully, swinging in her hammock:

"Sentiment, for us, is no good. I've learned that."

"You?"

"Of course."

"How?"

"Experience," said Rita, carelessly. "Every girl is b