was
in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his
uncle's taste.

"Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can
scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is
perfectly lovely with other fellows' mothers, and with mine. He treats
them all, he says, as he should like to have had others treat his mother.
Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have
given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been
lovely. Mamma says she was. But I'd just as soon not have any
mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like
rain. You know there isn't a bit of sentiment in me. I'm practical. My
father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at
fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face
like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and
poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of
it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn't say anything in reply, but
I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with
fine sentiment.

"Jack is horribly young--only twenty-two--so he won't have his money for
three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when
he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and
holds a cigarette in his hand, he looks as if he had just stepped out of
one of the pictures in _Life_. He looks so 'chappie.' He is a good deal
easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some
day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?"

"Why, my dear Pet," I said in an unguarded moment, "which do you love?"

I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me.

"I don't love either of them. I've had one love affair and I don't care
for another until I make sure which man I'm going to marry."

"Can you fall in love to order?" I asked in dismay.

"Not exactly. 'To order!' Why, no. Anybody would think you were having
boots made. But it's being with a man, and having him awfully good to you,
and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not
being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I'm sure
from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I'll
take him. You are awfully sweet, and not a bit like an old maid. I tell
everybody so."

"A