never heard it, and to the old girls it was
always new.

The stage setting had been perfect--a moonlit beach, and lapping waves
and rustling pine trees. When Rosalie chanced to omit any detail, her
hearers, already familiar with the story, eagerly supplied it.

"And he held your hand all the time he was talking," Priscilla
prompted.

"Oh, Rosalie! Did he?" in a shocked chorus from the newcomers.

"Y--yes. He just sort of took hold of it and forgot to let go, and I
didn't like to remind him."

"What did he say?"

"He said he couldn't live without me."

"And what did you say?"

"I said I was awfully sorry, but he'd have to."

"And then what happened?"

"Nothing happened," she was obliged to confess. "I s'pose something
might have happened if I'd accepted him, but you see, I didn't."

"But you were very young at the time," suggested Evalina Smith. "Are you
sure you knew your own mind?"

Rosalie nodded with an air of melancholy regret.

"Yes. I knew I couldn't ever love him, because, he--well, he had an
awfully funny nose. It started to point in one direction, and then
changed its mind and pointed in the other."

Her hearers would have preferred that she had omitted this detail; but
Rosalie was literal-minded and lacked the story-teller's instinct for
suppression.

"He asked if there wasn't any hope that I would change," she added
pensively. "I told him that I could never love him enough to marry him,
but that I would always respect him."

"And then what did he say?"

"He said he wouldn't commit suicide."

A profound hush followed, while Rosalie gazed at the moon and the others
gazed at Rosalie. With her gleaming hair and violet eyes, she was
entirely their ideal of a storybook heroine. They did not think of
envying her; they merely wondered and admired. She was crowned by
natural right, Queen of Romance.

Mae Van Arsdale, who had listened in silence to the recital, was the
first to break the spell. She rose, fluffed up her hair, straightened
her blouse, and politely suppressed a yawn.

"Nonsense, Rosalie! You're a silly little goose to make such a fuss over
nothing.--Good-night, children. I'm going to bed now."

She sauntered toward the door, but paused on the threshold to drop the
casual statement. "_I've_ been proposed to three times."

A shocked gasp arose from the circle at this _lese-majeste_. The
disdainful condescension of a new girl was more than they could brook.

"She's a horrid old