dear." I'd seen that glance before, several times, and I knew just
what it meant; so I wasn't surprised to see Father shrug his shoulders
and turn away as Mother said to me:

"Very well, dear. Ill think it over and let you know to-night."

But I was surprised that night to have Mother say I could go, for I'd
about given up hope, after all that talk at the breakfast-table. And
she said something else that surprised me, too. She said she'd like to
know Paul Mayhew herself; that she always wanted to know the friends
of her little girl. And she told me to ask him to call the next
evening and play checkers or chess with me.

Happy? I could scarcely contain myself for joy. And when the next
evening came bringing Paul, and Mother, all prettily dressed as if
he were really truly company, came into the room and talked so
beautifully to him, I was even more entranced. To be sure, it did
bother me a little that Paul laughed so much, and so loudly, and that
he couldn't seem to find anything to talk about only himself, and what
he was doing, and what he was going to do. Some way, he had never
seemed like that at school. And I was afraid Mother wouldn't like
that.

All the evening I was watching and listening with her eyes and her
ears everything he did, everything he said. I so wanted Mother to like
him! I so wanted Mother to see how really fine and splendid and noble
he was. But that evening--Why _couldn't_ he stop talking about the
prizes he'd won, and the big racing car he'd just ordered for next
summer? There was nothing fine and splendid and noble about that. And
_were_ his finger nails always so dirty?