detail of the opposing figure, caressing with their shy
surreptitious glances the girl's hair, her broad forehead, her lips;
observe how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, like bees
that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; how the eyes of the
young man play about the strong chin, and the bewitching curves of the
neck and shoulders, and rise again to the hair, and again steal over
the face, to the strong shoulders, and again hurry back to the face
lest some feature fade. This is not staring--it is done so quickly,
so furtively, so deftly withal as the minutes fly by, while the lips
and the teeth chatter on, that the stolen honey of these glances is
stored away in the heart's memory, all unknown to him who has gathered
it.

An hour has passed now, while we have watched the restless eyes at
their work, and what has passed with the hour? Nothing, ladies and
gentlemen--nothing; gibber, chatter, giggles, and squeals--that is
all. Grandma Barclay above stairs has her opinion of it, and wonders
how girls can be so addle-pated. In her day--but who ever lived long
enough or travelled far enough or inquired widely enough to find one
single girl who was as wise, or as sedate, or as industrious, or as
meek, or as gentle, or as kind as girls were in her grandmother's day?
No wonder indeed that grandmothers are all married--for one could
hardly imagine the young men of that day overlooking such paragons of
virtue and propriety as lived in their grandmothers' days. Fancy an
old maid grandmother with all those qualities of mind and heart that
girls had in their grandmothers' days!

So the elder Mrs. Barclay in her room at the top of the stairs hears
what "he said," "he said he said," and what "she said she said," and
what "we girls did," and what "you boys ought to do," and what "would
be perfectly lovely," and what "would be a lot of fun!" and so
grandmother, good soul, grows drowsy, closes her door, and goes to
bed. She does not know that they are about to sit down together on a
sofa--not a long, straight, cold, formal affair, but a small, rather
snuggly sofa, with the dish between them. No, girls never did that in
their grandmothers' days, so of course who would imagine they would do
so now? Who, indeed? But there they are, and there is the dish between
them, and two hands reaching into the same dish, must of course
collide. Collision is inevitable, and by carefully noting the
repetitions of the collisions, one m