e and ladies' wearing apparel. But not so young as that sounds. Her
general manner of conduct was infantile enough, but she had tired eyes
and a million little lines coming round 'em, and if you got her in a
strong light you saw she was old enough to have a serious aim in life.

She did use massage cream and beauty lotions with a deep seriousness
you wouldn't suspect her of when she sat out in the hammock in the
moonlight and scratched this ukulele and acted the part of a mere porch
wren. That was really the girl's trade; all she'd ever learned. Mebbe
she had misspent her early youth, or mebbe she wasn't meant for anything
else--just a butterfly with some of the gold powder brushed off and the
wings a little mite crumpled.

Gee! How times have changed since I took my own hair out of a braid!
In them fond old days when a girl didn't seem attractive enough for
marriage she took up a career--school-teaching probably--and was looked
at sidewise by her family. It's different now. In this advanced day a
girl seems to start for the career first and take up marriage only when
all other avenues is closed. She's the one that is now regarded by her
brainy sisters as a failure. I consider it an evil state for the world
to be in--but no matter; I can't do anything about it from up here, with
haytime coming on.

Anyway, this Lydia girl had not been constructed for any career requiring
the serious use of the head; and yet so far she had failed in the other
one. She was on the way to being an outcast if she didn't pull something
desperate pretty soon. She was looking down on thirty, and I bet her
manner hadn't changed a bit since she was looking up to twenty.

Of course she'd learned things about her game. Living round a college she
must of tried her wiles on at least ten graduating classes of young men.
Naturally she'd learned technique and feminine knavery. She was still
flirty enough. She had a little short upper lip that she could lift with
great pathos. And the party hadn't more than landed here when I saw that
at last she did have a serious aim in life.

It was this here assistant to her father, who was named Professor Oswald
Pennypacker; and he was a difficult aim in life, because he didn't need a
wife any more than the little dicky birds need wrist watches. You seen
his picture there. About thirty-five he was and had devoted all his years
to finding out the names of wild animals, which is said to be one of our
best sciences