disobliging of me, and that I'd done it to spite her. Once, too, when
I tried to reason with her--and Mary Virginia needed reason if ever a
kid did--she bumped my head until I had knots on it. There's your
delightful Mary Virginia for you!"

"Anyhow, you didn't die and become an angel--you stayed disagreeably
alive and you're going to become a lawyer," said Mary Virginia, too
gently. "And your head was bumpable, Laurence, though I'm sorry to say
I don't ever expect to bump it again. Why, I'm going away to school
and when I come back I'll be Miss Eustis, and you'll be Mr. Mayne!
Won't it be funny, though?"

"I don't see anything funny in calling you Miss Eustis," said
Laurence, with boyish impatience. "And I'm certainly not going to
notice you if you're silly enough to call me Mister Mayne. I hope you
won't be a fool, Mary Virginia. So many girls are fools." He ate
another cake.

"Not half as big fools as boys are, though," said she,
dispassionately. "My father says the man is always the bigger fool of
the two."

Laurence snorted. "I wonder what we'll be like, though--both of us?"
he mused.

"You? You're biggity now, but you'll be lots worse, then," said Mary
Virginia, with unflattering frankness. "I think you'll probably strut
like a turkey, and you'll be baldheaded, and wear double-lensed horn
spectacles, and spats, and your wife will call you 'Mr. Mayne' to your
face and 'Your Poppa' to the children, and she'll perfectly _despise_