, and put them in these pockets,--it's a kind of habit
with you, I suppose. And just plain washing won't take the idea of
bugs off your hands."

"Prudence, you are only a girl,--a childish girl, but a very sweet one.
I want you to like me. When you grow up, you are going to be a
wonderfully good and lovely woman. I--I am going to want you then. I
know it. Let's just be friends now, can't we--until later--for a long
time yet? I'll promise on my word of honor never to put another bug in
my pockets, or my handkerchiefs. But I can't promise not to touch
them, for I have to do it in class. That's how I earn my living! But
I will wash my hands with Ivory soap and sapolio, and rub them with
cold cream, and powder them, and perfume them, before I ever come near
you again. Won't that do?"

Prudence shook her head. "I know you are laughing at me," she said,
"but I always told you I was just a silly simpleton. And--it isn't the
bugs altogether. I--I like it better to be with my sisters than----"

"Than with me? I see. As I said, the woman of you is still sleeping.
Well, we are young, and I will wait. I won't bother you any more for a
long time, Prudence, but I shan't forget you. And some day I will come
back to you again." He stared at her moodily. Then he put his hands
beneath her elbows, and looked into her eyes searchingly. "You are a
strange girl, Prudence. In some ways, you are so womanly, and in other
ways so--pitifully girlish! All the woman in your heart seems to be
given to your sisters and your father, and-- But you will waken, and I
won't hurry you." Then he put his arms around her again, and whispered
in her ear, "But I love you, Prudence, and--if some one else should do
the awakening--it would hurt!" Then he kissed her, and went away.

But Prudence ran up-stairs, singing happily. "Oh, I feel like a
caged-up bird that has broken loose," she cried to her reflection in
the mirror jubilantly. "Oh, what fun it will be to come home from
church with Fairy and the twins, the way I used to do!"

CHAPTER VII

LESSONS IN ETIQUETTE

Connie was lying flat on her back near the register. The twins were
sitting on the floor near her, hearing each other conjugate Latin
verbs. And Prudence, with her darning basket, was earnestly trying to
solve a domestic problem,--how to get three pairs of wearable stockings
out of eleven hosiery remnants. So Fairy found them as she came in,
radiant and glow