again Paul Mayhew didn't "show off" at
all in the way I wanted him to--though he most emphatically "showed
off" in _his_ way! It seemed to me that he bragged even more about
himself and his belongings than he had before. And I didn't like at
all the way he ate his food. Why, Father didn't eat like that--with
such a noisy mouth, and such a rattling of the silverware!

And so it went--wise mother that she was! Far from prohibiting me to
have anything to do with Paul Mayhew, she let me see all I wanted
to of him, particularly in my own home. She let me go out with him,
properly chaperoned, and she never, by word or manner, hinted that she
didn't admire his conceit and braggadocio.

And it all came out exactly as I suspect she had planned from the
beginning. When Paul Mayhew asked to be my escort to the class
reception in June, I declined with thanks, and immediately afterwards
told Fred Small I would go with _him_. But even when I told Mother
nonchalantly, and with carefully averted eyes, that I was going to the
reception with Fred Small--even then her pleasant "Well, that's good!"
conveyed only cheery mother interest; nor did a hasty glance into her
face discover so much as a lifted eyebrow to hint, "I thought you'd
come to your senses _sometime_!"

Wise little mother that she was!

In the days and weeks that followed (though nothing was said) I
detected a subtle change in certain matters, however. And as I look
back at it now, I am sure I can trace its origin to my "affair" with
Paul Mayhew. Evidently Mother had no intention of running the risk of
any more block-away courtships; also evidently she intended to know
who my friends were. At all events, the old Anderson mansion soon
became the rendezvous of all the boys and girls of my acquaintance.
And such good times as we had, with Mother always one of us, and ever
proposing something new and interesting!

And because boys--not _a_ boy, but boys--were as free to come to
the house as were girls, they soon seemed to me as commonplace and
matter-of-course and free from sentimental interest as were the girls.

Again wise little mother!

But, of course, even this did not prevent my falling in love with some
one older than myself, some one quite outside of my own circle of
intimates. Almost every girl in her teens at some time falls violently
in love with some remote being almost old enough to be her father--a
being whom she endows with all the graces and perfections of