"You can scoff all you please," retorted Lucia, stoutly. "I
believe it. We'll see if I'm not right. ...How lovely you did look
last night! ... You wait for your 'right man.' Don't let them
hurry you. The most dreadful things happen as the result of girls'
hurrying, and then meeting him when it's too late."

"Not to women who have the right sort of pride." Margaret drew
herself up, and once more her far-away but decided resemblance to
Grandmother Bowker showed itself. "I'd never be weak enough to
fall in love unless I wished."

"That's not weakness; it's strength," declared Lucia, out of the
fulness of experience gleaned from a hundred novels or more.

Margaret shook her head uncompromisingly. "It'd be weakness for
me." She dropped upon the bench beside her sister. "I'm going to
marry, and I'm going to superintend your future myself. I'm not
going to let them kill all the fine feeling in you, as they've
killed it in me."

"Killed it!" said Lucia, reaching out for her sister's hand. "You
can't say it's dead, so long as you cry like you did last night,
when you came home from the ball."

Margaret reddened angrily, snatched her hand away. "Shame on you!"
she cried. "I thought you were above spying."

"The door was open between your bedroom and mine," pleaded Lucia.
"I couldn't help hearing."