"What _is_ your name?" asked Fitz, trying to feign interest.

"Evelyn," said she, "but my intimate friends call me Eve."

"Huh!" said Fitz grossly, "Eve ate the apple first."

"Yes," sighed Eve, "and gave Adam the core. Nowadays, I heard mamma say
to Count Grassi, it's the other way 'round."

"My father says," said Fitz, "that Eve ought to of been spanked."

Certain memories reddened Eve; but the natural curiosity to compare
experiences got the better of her maiden reticence upon so delicate a
subject. She lowered her voice.

"Do you yell?" she asked. "I do. It frightens them if you yell."

"I was never spanked" said Fitz. "When I'm naughty mamma writes to papa,
and he writes to me, and says he's sorry to hear that I haven't yet
learned to be a gentleman, and a man of the world, and an American.
That's worse than being spanked."

"Oh, dear!" said Eve, "I don't mind what people say; that's just water
on a duck's back; but what they do is with slippers--"

"And," cried Fitz, elated with his own humor, "it isn't on the
duck's--back."

"Are you yourself to-day," asked Miss Eve, her eyes filling, "or are you
just unusually horrid?"