'"
"Did you wear your hair plaited when you were ten years old?" enquired
Norman, intensely busy with another drawing.
"O no; I didn't do anything when I was ten years old but get mad and
make up with my two dearest friends."
"One of whom was your dearest friend one-half of the time and the other
the rest of it, I suppose."
"Don't be satirical, sir. I had a lover when I was eleven; I used to
skate with him and write him little notes, folded very queerly."
"Why do you draw twelve and thirteen with their heads down?" asked Mae,
after a moment.
"Because they read so much; everything they can get hold of, including,
possibly, a very revised edition of 'Arabian Nights'?"
"Yes," laughed Mae, "and my first novel, 'Villette.'"
"You go to a play for the first time now," suggested Norman. "How you
clasp your hands and wink your eyes and bite your lips! And next day, in
front of your mother's pier-glass, how you scream 'O, my love,' and gasp
and tumble over in a heap in your brown calico, as the grand lady did
the night before, in her pink silk.
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