n't I go
and stay with a clergyman's family in Plymouth? A lady.... When I was at
Plymouth last month for the Prince's wedding celebrations one of the
officers of a battleship asked who I was!"

"I know, you've told me. Vassie--"

"Well?"

"Nothing. Only I sometimes wonder why you've never got wed up there to
Plymouth. One of those officers, or perhaps a clergyman...?"

Vassie rather wondered herself, but all she said was: "I'm not going to
give up my freedom for the first man who lifts his little finger, I can
tell you. I haven't such a great opinion of the menfolk. Conceited
creatures, the most of them. I mean to pick and choose. And I mean
Ishmael to help me."

"Oh, Vassie, how?" came from the wide-eyed listener on the bed.

"Why, I shall make him bring his school friends down, of course. They're
all gentlemen. And then I shall make them fall in love with me."

"But won't they be a lot younger than you, Vassie? You're three years
older'n Ishmael."

"Some of 'em may be older than him, mayn't they? And one thing leads to
another. We might both get asked to stay with their folks. Besides--I
don't know that I should mind a man younger than me. I'd know more what
to do with him. I've always found boys easier. Men are so funny--as if
they were always keeping something to themselves. I don't like that."

She looked indeed as though she might demand and take all she could
get--a girl greedy of life and the good things in it, or the things that
to her seemed good. She swooped down beside the little creature on the
bed and flung an arm round her. The younger girl's personality seemed
to be drowned in the bright effulgence of the elder as her slight form
in the swelling folds of blue taffeta skirt that overflowed her.

"What about Mr. Tonkin?" ventured Phoebe; "he'd have you fast enough.
And he's almost as good as a clergyman, though of course not as good as
an officer...."

"Old Tonkin, indeed!" cried Vassie indignantly. "I wouldn't touch him if
he was the only man alive. Why, mother's actually jealous of the way he
tries to come patting and pawing me.... She can have him--if she can get
him. Horrid, pale, fat old man!" She shook the thought of him from off
her, and ran on: "And when I'm a la--I mean when I'm married, I'll see
what I can do for you, Phoebe. You're too soft ever to do any good for
yourself. As like as not you'd take any clumsy lout that offered, simply
because you wouldn't know how to say 'No.'"