for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was
more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the
young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her
thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a
little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she
remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her
blush, so you see she was developing very fast.

As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and
Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But
Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her
own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue
as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old.
Josephine took the two girls to matinées and gave a little tea for them,
and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them
candy and violets, exactly as if they were young ladies, and he treated
them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids
when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie
was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him;
but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and
seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she
confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That
hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too
frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to
Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of
trouble.

Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad
when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make
the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to