vacation that the old, happy, squabbling relationship began to be
tinged with a new consciousness. It was the elemental instinct,
the everlasting human impulse. The boys, hobbledehoys, both of
them, grew shy and turned red at unexpected moments. The girls
developed a certain condescension of manner, which was very
confusing and irritating to the boys. Elizabeth, as unaware of
herself as the bud that has not opened to the bee, sighed a good
deal, and repeated poetry to any one who would listen to her. She
said boys were awfully rough, and their boots had a disagreeable
smell, "I shall never get married," said Elizabeth; "I hate
boys." Nannie did not hate anybody, but she thought she would
rather be a missionary than marry;--"though I'm afraid I'd be
afraid of the savages," she confessed, timorously.

David and Blair were confidential to each other about girls in
general, and Elizabeth in particular; they said she was terribly
stand-offish. "Oh, well, she's a girl," said David; "what can you
expect?"

"She's darned good-looking," Blair blurted out. And David said,
with some annoyance, "What's that amount to?" He said that, for
his part, he didn't mean to fool around after girls. "But I'm
older than you, Blair; you'll feel that way when you get to be my
age; it's only when a man is very young that he bothers with
'em."

"That's so," said Blair, gloomily. "Well, I never expect to
marry." Blair was very gloomy just then; he had come home from
school the embodiment of discontent. He was old enough now to
suffer agonies of mortification because of his mother's