"Of course I don't. But I could if I liked. I simply won't look it because
I don't care to be made ridiculous. I should start to look my age at once
if father stopped treating me like a child."

"But you've just said he treats you as a woman!"

"You don't understand, Winnie," said the girl sharply. "Unless you're
pretending. Now you've never told me anything about yourself, and I've
always told you lots about myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family.
How were you treated when you were my age?"

"In what way?"

"You know what way," said Audrey, gazing at her.

"Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally, somehow."

"Were you ever engaged?"

"Me? Oh, no!" answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity. "I'm vehy interested
in them. Oh, vehy! Oh, vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the one. Oh! She was the
one. She refused eleven men, and when she was going to be married she made
me embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up all night the
night before the wedding to finish them."

"And what did the bridegroom say about it?"

"The bridegroom didn't say anything about it because he didn't know. Nobody