Exquisite pleasure to walk with Lizzie Pierce. Lizzie's walk was a
sliding, swooping dance of little pointed feet, always as if she were
going out to meet somebody, her sharp, black-eyed face darting and
turning.

"My _dear_, he kept on doing _this_" (Lizzie did it) "as if he
was trying to sit on himself to keep him from flying off into space like a
cork. Fancy proposing on three tumblers of soda water! I might have been
Mrs. Pennefather but for that."

Lizzie went about laughing, laughing at everybody, looking for something
to laugh at everywhere. Now and then she would stop suddenly to
contemplate the vision she had created.

"If Connie didn't wear a bustle--or, oh my dear, if Mr. Hancock did----"

"Mr. _Hancock!_" Clear, firm laughter, chiming and tinkling.

"Goodness! To think how many ridiculous people there are in the world!"

"I believe you see something ridiculous in me."

"Only when--only when----"

She swung her parasol in time to her sing-song. She wouldn't say when.

"Lizzie--not--_not_ when I'm in my black lace fichu and the little
round hat?"

"Oh, dear me--no. Not _then_."