do
her for this season--and next season too!"

Mother put on a stern, determined kind of look, almost hard. Into the
life of every woman who is a mother there comes a time when she learns,
suddenly, that her little girl is trying not to be a little girl any
longer but to become a woman. It is a hard moment for mothers, and
no wonder that they seem unwarrantedly adamantine. Mrs. Merriam
instinctively knew that wanting furs and wanting boys spelled the same
evil. But Missy, who was fifteen instead of thirty-seven and whose
emotions and desires were still as hazy and uncorrelated as they were
acute, stared with bewildered hurt at this unjust harshness in her
usually kind parent.

Then she turned large, pleading eyes upon her father; he had shown a
dawning interest in the subject of white fox furs. But Mr. Merriam, now,
seemed to have lost the issue of furs in the newer issue of boys.

"What's this about the Summers boy?" he demanded. "It's the first I've
ever heard of this business."

"He only wanted me to go walking, father. All the rest of the girls
go walking with boys." "Indeed! Well, you won't. Nor for a good many
years!"

Such unexpected shortness and sharpness from father made her feel
suddenly wretched; he was even worse than mother.

"Who is he, anyway?" he exploded further.

Missy's lips were twitching inexplicably; she feared to essay speech,
but it was mother who answered.

"He's that red-headed boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery."

"Arthur's a nice boy," Missy then attempted courageously. "I don't think
he ought to be blamed just because he's poor and--"

Her defence ended ignominiously in a choking sound. She wasn't one who
cried easily and this unexpected outburst amazed herself; she could not,
to have saved her life, have told why she cried.

Her father reached over and patted her hand.

"I'm not blaming him because he's poor, daughter. It's just that I don't
want you to start thinking about the boys for a long while yet. Not
about Arthur or any other boy. You're just a little girl."

Missy knew very well that she was not "just a little girl," but she
knew, too, that parents nourish many absurd ideas. And though father was
now absurd, she couldn't help feeling tender toward him when he called
her "daughter" in that gentle tone. So, sighing a secret little sigh,
she smiled back at him a misty smile which he took for comprehension
and a promise. The subject of white fox furs seemed closed; Mis