s I am done? I'm enjoying myself."

"Too much, I'm afraid," said her mother.

"I don't want to get married," Jenny repeated. "I don't see that you did
much good to yourself by getting married. I think you threw yourself
away. Everybody must have liked you when you was a girl, and you go and
marry Dad. I think you were potty. And yet you want me to do the same. I
can't understand people."

"Why couldn't you have been nicer to that young baker chap?"

"Young baker chap? Yes, then I woke up. Him! Why, he used to hang his
shoulders up when he took off his coat. Besides, he's common."

"You're getting very dainty."

"Well, look at the men you want me to marry. Why--they're awful--like
navvies half of them. Oh, don't carry on, mother. I know what I want."

"Jenny," said her mother sharply, "you haven't done anything wrong, have
you?"

"Of course not."

"Don't do anything wrong, there's a good girl. I was very upset about
Edie, but nothing to what I should be about you."

"This little girl's all right. What's the matter with going to bed?"

"You go on up. I'll wait for your father."

"You're in a funny mood to-night, Mrs. Raeburn," said her daughter.
"Good night."

When she reached the bedroom Jenny woke up her sister.

"Look here, young May, you haven't said nothing to mother, have you,
about My Friend the Prince?"

"Of course not, you great stupid."

"Well, don't you, that's all, because I'll go straight off and live with
one of the girls if you ever dared say a word about him. Mother wouldn't
understand there's nothing in it."

"You know your own business best," said May sleepily.

"That's quite right," Jenny agreed, and began to undress herself to a
sentimental tune and the faint tinkle of hairpins falling on the
toilet-table.

In bed, she thought affectionately of Maurice, of his gayety and
pleasant manner of speech, of his being a gentleman. He must be a
gentleman because he never said so. Other girls had love affairs with
gentlemen, but, with one or two exceptions, she believed they were all
swankers. At any rate Maurice and Colonel Walpole were different from
Irene's Danby (long idiot) and Madge Wilson's Berthold (dirty little
"five to two!") and Elsie Crauford's Willie (him!), all examples of
swank. Still in some ways it was a pity that Maurice was a gentleman. It
would never mean a wedding. Those photographs of his mother and sisters
had crushed that idea. Even if he asked her to marry him, sh