en I said my prayers I started
to pray that a rattling good way would turn up, but I remembered it
wasn't exactly a thing to pray about and that watching might be better.

I had had a grand time being in love. Every day there was some new
evidence of how nice a beau is, and though the other boys didn't let
Whythe have it all his own way, as they called it, and we had a jolly
time together and I danced and rode and picnicked and pleasured with
all of them, still, it was understood that Whythe was my steady and
they gave him right much chance. It had been loads of fun having a
steady, and I knew now how excited Mazie, one of our maids at home,
must have felt the day she became engaged to hers, who was the milkman.
But I had somehow thought that nobody but girls of Mazie's sort had
steadies, and I had wished I could be a maid for a few weeks just to
find out how it would feel to possess some one and be possessed by him.
I guess it amounts to about the same thing, though, love does, no
matter in what way it comes to one or by what name we call it, if it is
the genuine thing. I have certainly never felt about Whythe in the way
Mazie must have felt about her milkman, judging by her face, but I had
been enjoying myself and I didn't intend to stop with too much
suddenness. Mr. Willie had warned me and I would remember, but it is
against the law to condemn a man unheard. The Bible says so. I would
go slowly for once in my life and give Whythe a chance to conduct his
own defense. It wouldn't be necessary to mention that a case was being
tried or that I would be both judge and jury. There are times in life
when it is well to keep some things to oneself.

CHAPTER XV

Yesterday it poured in torrents all day. None of us could get out of
the house, so while Miss Araminta darned my stockings, which hadn't
been touched since I came to Twickenham Town, I read aloud to the whole
bunch in the library and we had a very nice time. Miss Araminta has
tried to teach me to darn since I have been here, but she has not
succeeded in doing it! I will never be a darner. I have asked Mother
not to get me all-over silk stockings, as the Lisle-thread feet last
much longer, but she doesn't seem to remember, and one of my charities
is giving my nice stockings away when they can no longer be worn with
self-respect. Clarissa, Mother's maid, is supposed to keep them in
order, but she doesn't do it, and she has headaches so often I don't