"'Though you're sweet and though you're pretty,
Men won't love you if you're witty!'

"I'm _always_ afraid of not being loved!"

Miss Gale looked so frightened at this very idea, that they all broke
into laughter.

"You should worry!" declared Bill. "You haven't enough wit to do any
great harm. Or, at least, if you have, you've compensating foolishness--I
mean--that is--"

"There, there, Billee," counselled Patty, "you'd better stop,--you're
just getting in deeper with every word."

"Oh, it's all right," and Beatrice shrugged her shoulders, "I need to
be brought up with a round turn now and then. I'm too intellectual,--I
know."

She purposely assumed a vacant, stupid expression and folded her hands
helplessly in her lap.

"She's a hummer," Channing remarked in an aside to Patty, as further
hilarity followed Betty's fooling.

"I like her lots," Patty returned. "She's a frivolous little thing, but
thoroughly sweet and dear. She adores Fleurette."

"Aha, little mother! So that's the way to your good graces, is it? I too
adore Fleurette."