ntion to creep into her voice than Sally knows all
about it.

"As if I don't know already. You mean me and Prosy."

"Of course. But how did you know?"

"Mammy _dear_! As if I was born yesterday! If you want people not to
know things, you mustn't have delicate inflexions of voice. I knew
you were going to catechize about Prosy the minute you got to 'did
I really want to know.'"

"But I'm not going to catechize, chick. Only when you ask me what I'm
thinking about, and really want to know, I tell you. I _was_ thinking
about you and Conrad Vereker." For some mysterious reason this mention
of his name in full seems to mature the conversation, and make clearer
definition necessary.

Our own private opinion is that any one who closely observes human
communion will see that two-thirds of it runs on lines like the
foregoing. Very rarely indeed does a human creature say what it means.
Exhaustive definition, lucid statements, concise terminology--even
plain English--are foreign to its nature. The congenial soil in which
the fruit of Intelligence ripens is Suggestion, and the wireless
telegraphs of the mind are the means by which it rejoices to
communicate. Don't try to say what you mean--because _you_ can't. You
are not clever enough. Try to mean what you want to say, and leave the
dictionary to take care of itself.

This little bit of philosophizing of ours has just given Sally time,
pondering gravely with the eyebrows all at rest and lips at ease, to
deal with the developed position created by the mere substitution of
a name for a nickname.

"Ought there to be ... anything to think about?" Thus Sally; and her
mother sees, or thinks she sees, a little new colour in the girl's
cheeks. Or is it only the sunset? Then Rosalind says to herself
that perhaps she has made a mistake, had better have left it alone.
Perhaps. But it's done now. She is not one that goes back on her
resolutions. It is best not to be too tugging and solemn over it. She
speaks with a laugh.

"It's not my little daughter I'm afraid of, Sallykin. She's got the
key of the position. It's that dear good boy."

"He's not a boy. He's thirty-one next February. Only he's not got
a birthday, because it's not leap-year. Going by birthdays he's not
quite half-past seven."

"Then it won't do to go by birthdays. Even at thirty-one, though,
some boys are not old enough to know better. He's very inexperienced
in some things."

"A babe unborn--only he can write p