"--Everything should belong to the state--"

"--No, listen. Kiss me both ways, and then tell me which you think is the
nicest--"

A squeal of laughter arose from the bed and, turning, Mary saw that one
of the girls was holding the back of a toothbrush against her upper lip.

"Now," she mumbled, "this is with the moustache ... Kiss me hard ..."

"The greatest book in the world," continued the girl with the spectacles,
"is Marx's book on Capital--"

Mary turned to the window again, more dreamy-eyed than ever.

"The greatest book in the world," she thought, "is the book of life....
Oh, if I could only write a few pages in it ... myself ...!"




CHAPTER X


Mary "came out" the winter after her graduation.

If she had been left to herself she would have dispensed with the
ceremony quite as cheerfully as she had dispensed with Miss Parsons'
School for Young Ladies. But in the first place her aunts were adamant,