t he has come ever since we remember,
and is as familiar with us as we are with ourselves. No doubt, in a
little town like this, everybody who has the least claim to be a
gentleman or a lady, knows every other gentleman or lady--after a
fashion. But naturally father and mother were not intimate with the
late Mr. and Mrs. Robinson; and we--that is, Tom and we girls--are not
so near each other in age as to have been brought together by our
respective nurses. We did not pick daisies in company, or else pull
each other's hair, and slap each other's faces, according to our
varying moods. Tom Robinson is four or five years older than I, not to
speak of Dora."

"He stopped us this very morning," Rose again joined in the chorus,
"when May and I were going with the Hewetts to gather primroses in
Parson's Meadow. He asked if our sisters--that was you, Dora, with Annie
thrown into the bargain--thought of going on the river this afternoon."

"He might be an inch or two taller, I don't suppose he is above five
feet six or seven," suggested Annie, maliciously recalling a detail in
the description of Dora's future husband, that be he who or what he
might, he should certainly not be under six feet in height. Dora, who
was herself considerably below the middle size, would never yield her
freedom to a man who had to admit a lower scale of inches.

"And his hair might be a little less--chestnut, shall we say, Dora?"
put in Rose with exasperating sprightliness, referring to a former
well-known prejudice of Dora's against "_Judas-tinted hair_."

"Would you call his nose Roman or Grecian?" asked May naively, of a
very nondescript feature.

"And he has so little to say for himself," recommenced Annie, "though
when he does speak there is no great fault to be found with what he
says; still it would be dreadfully dull and tiresome to have to do all
the speaking for a silent partner."

"Oh, hold your tongues, you wretched girls," cried Dora, standing at
bay, stamping one small foot in a slipper with a preposterously large
rosette. "What does it signify? The man, like his words, is well
enough--better than any of us, I dare say," speaking indignantly; "but
what does it matter, when I could never look at him, never dream of him,
as anything more than a mere acquaintance? I don't wish for a lover or a
husband--at least not yet," with a gasp; "I don't wish to leave home,
and go away from all of you, though you are so unkind and teasing--not
fo