nted to her friend at M. P.'s moral
strictures. With her refreshing laugh, Evelyn brushed these aside as
well.

"Tommyrot! Never mind that old jumble-sale of all the virtues. It was
jolly clever of a mite like you to bamboozle them as you did--take my
word for that."

This jocose way of treating the matter seemed to put it in an entirely
new light; Laura could even smile at it herself. In the days that
followed, she learned, indeed, to laugh over it with Evelyn, and to
share the latter's view that she had been superior in wit to those she
had befooled. This meant a great and healthy gain in self-assurance for
Laura. It also led to her laying more and more weight on what her
friend said. For it was not as if Evelyn had a low moral standard; far
from that: she was honest and straightforward, too proud, or, it might
be, too lazy to tell a lie herself--with all the complications lying
involved--and Laura never heard her say a harder thing of anyone than
what she had just said about Mary Pidwall.

The two talked late into every night after this, Laura perched,
monkey-fashion, on the side of her friend's bed. Evelyn had all the
accumulated wisdom of eighteen, and was able to clear her young
companion up on many points about which Laura had so far been in the
dark. But when, in time, she came to relate the mortifications she had
suffered--and was still called on to suffer--at the hands of the other
sex, Evelyn pooh-poohed the subject.

"Time enough in a couple of years for that. Don't bother your head
about it in the meantime."

"I don't now--not a bit. I only wanted to know why. Sometimes, Evvy, do
you know, they liked to talk to quite little kids of seven and eight
better than me."

"Perhaps you talked too much yourself--and about yourself?"

"I don't think I did. And if you don't talk something, they yawn and go
away."

"You've got to let them do the lion's share, child. Just you sit still,
and listen, and pretend you like it--even though you're bored to
extinction."

"And they never need to pretend anything, I suppose? No, I think
they're horrid. You don't like them either, Evvy, do you? ... any more
than I do?"

Evelyn laughed.

"Say what you think they are," persisted Laura and waggled the other's
arm, to make her speak.

"Mostly fools," said Evelyn, and laughed again--laughed in all the
conscious power of lovely eighteen.

Overjoyed at this oneness of mind, Laura threw her arms round her
friend's nec