"Oh, yes, I like tan boots, too. Why didn't you tell me my hair had
tumbled down again?"

"Because you are so beautiful, with it like that, Miss Lady--"

"Now, Don, if you begin again I shall go straight in the house. What
did you mean by saying you had gotten what was worst for you, and you
had made the worst of it?"

"Oh, the way I've been brought up. You see my sister took me when I
was a baby, and I guess I was an awful nuisance to her. She liked to
travel, and kept it up a good while even after Margery was born. I
grew up in hotels and on steamers and trains, going to school wherever
we happened to be staying long enough; sometimes in France, sometimes
in Switzerland, sometimes in America. I remember one Christmas when I
was about six, we were in a hotel in Paris. My nurse put me to bed
early so she could go out with her sweetheart, and told me there
wasn't any Santa Claus, so I wouldn't stay awake watching for him. I
hate that woman to this day! I can remember the big, lonesome room,
and the red curtains, and the crystal chandelier and the way I cried
because there wasn't any Santa Claus, and because I didn't have a
sweetheart!"

"Poor little chap! It was a mother you wanted."

"Perhaps. Sister was good to me. But she didn't understand me; she
never has. She has always given me too much of everything, advice
included."

"But since you have been grown, you've had lots of time to--to--take