"I certainly did not expect to find so great a change," said I. "Why,
Doll, you are wondrous, glorious, beautiful. I can't find words--"

"Then don't try, Cousin Malcolm," she said with a smile that fringed her
mouth in dimples. "Don't try. You will make me vain."

"You are that already, Doll," I answered, to tease her.

"I fear I am, cousin--vain as a man. But don't call me Doll. I am tall
enough to be called Dorothy."

She straightened herself up to her full height, and stepping close to my
side, said: "I am as tall as you. I will now try to make you vain. You
look just as young and as handsome as when I last saw you and so ardently
admired your waving black mustachio and your curling chin beard."

"Did you admire them, Doll--Dorothy?" I asked, hoping, though with little
faith, that the admiration might still continue.

"Oh, prodigiously," she answered with unassuring candor. "Prodigiously.
Now who is vain, Cousin Malcolm François de Lorraine Vernon?"

"I," I responded, shrugging my shoulders and confessing by compulsion.

"But you must remember," she continued provokingly, "that a girl of twelve
is very immature in her judgment and will fall in love with any man who
allows her to look upon him twice."

"Then I am to believe that the fire begins very early to burn in the
feminine heart," I responded.