n?"

"Where do your people go in summer?" inquired the lady. "WE go to Long
Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma
thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you
think?"

"What?"

"They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?"

"Me?"

"We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you
LOVE the Rue de la Paix?"

Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her
words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know
that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting
with one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter
apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of
the brand. He began to feel resentful.

"I suppose," she went on, "I'll find everything here fearfully Western.
Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth
Bittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?"

"I guess he will," returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. "The
mutt!"

"Really!" Fanchon exclaimed airily. "Aren't you great pals with him?"

"What's 'pals'?"

"Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals'
with any one? You ARE an odd child!"

It was too much.

"Oh, Bugs!" said Penrod.

This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him
with sudden favour.

"I like you, Penrod!" she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there
may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness.

"Oh, Bugs!" This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was
uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken.

"Yes, I do!" She stepped closer to him, smiling. "Your hair is ever so
pretty."

Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to
realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon
leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might
have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty
ways.

Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous
mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring
nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another
person's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery
that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking
into the eyes of Marjorie Jones.

Despite all anguish, contum