back.'

'Was it Bernard Shaw?' she asked.

'No; it wasn't; not this time; it was someone else. Oh, I do feel
sometimes when I'm sitting in my stall, so good and quiet, holding my
programme nicely and sitting up straight to the table, as it were, and
then a fellow lets me have it, tells me where I'm wrong and all that; I
_should_ like to stand up and give a back answer, wouldn't you?'

'No; I'd like to see _you_ do it! Er--what colour is that hat that your
cousin gave you?'

'Oh, colour?' he said thoughtfully, smoking. 'Let me see--what colour
was it? It doesn't seem to me that it was any particular colour. It was
a very curious colour. Sort of mole-colour. Or was it cerise? Or
violet?... You wouldn't like to see it, would you?'

'Why, yes, I'd like to see it; I wouldn't try it on of course.'

He opened the box.

'Why, what a jolly hat!' she exclaimed. 'You may not know it, but that
would just suit me; it would go with my dress, too.'

'Fancy.'

She took off her own hat, and touched up her hair with her fingers, and
tried on the other. Under it her eyes brightened in front of the glass;
her colour rose; she changed as one looked at her--she was sixteen