“Padre,” said Mary Virginia with deep gravity.  “My aunt Jenny says I’m growing up.  She says I’ll have to put up my hair and let down my frocks pretty soon, and that I’ll probably be thinking of beaux in another year, though she hopes to goodness I won’t, until I’ve got through with school at least.”

The almost unconscious imitation of Miss Jenny’s pecking, birdlike voice made me smile.

“Beaux!  Long skirts!  Put up hair!  Great Scott, will you listen to the kid!” scoffed Laurence.  “You everlasting little silly, you!  P’tite Madame, these cakes are certainly all to the good.  May I have another two or three, please!”

“I’m ’most thirteen years old, Laurence Mayne,” said Mary Virginia, with dignity.  “You’re only seventeen, so you don’t need to give yourself such hateful airs.  You’re not too old to be greedy, anyhow.  Padre, am I growing up?”

“I fear so, my child,” said I, gloomily.

“You’re not glad, either, are you, Padre?”

“But you were such a delightful child,” I temporized.

“Oh, lovely!” said Laurence, eying her with unflattering brotherliness.  “And she had so much feeling, too, Mary Virginia!  Why, when I was sick once, she wanted me to die, so she could ride to my funeral in the front carriage; she doted on funerals, the little ghoul!  She was horribly disappointed when I got better—­she thought it disobliging of me, and that I’d done it to spite her.  Once, too, when I tried to reason with her—­and Mary Virginia needed reason if ever a kid did—­she bumped my head until I had knots on it.  There’s your delightful Mary Virginia for you!”

“Anyhow, you didn’t die and become an angel—­you stayed disagreeably alive and you’re going to become a lawyer,” said Mary Virginia, too gently.  “And your head was bumpable, Laurence, though I’m sorry to say I don’t ever expect to bump it again.  Why, I’m going away to school and when I come back I’ll be Miss Eustis, and you’ll be Mr. Mayne!  Won’t it be funny, though?”

“I don’t see anything funny in calling you Miss Eustis,” said Laurence, with boyish impatience.  “And I’m certainly not going to notice you if you’re silly enough to call me Mister Mayne.  I hope you won’t be a fool, Mary Virginia.  So many girls are fools.”  He ate another cake.

“Not half as big fools as boys are, though,” said she, dispassionately.  “My father says the man is always the bigger fool of the two.”

Laurence snorted.  “I wonder what we’ll be like, though—­both of us?” he mused.

“You?  You’re biggity now, but you’ll be lots worse, then,” said Mary Virginia, with unflattering frankness.  “I think you’ll probably strut like a turkey, and you’ll be baldheaded, and wear double-lensed horn spectacles, and spats, and your wife will call you ‘Mr. Mayne’ to your face and ‘Your Poppa’ to the children, and she’ll perfectly despise people like Madame and the Padre and me!”