impulse:  “What a mean little life I have been living—­what a mean little life!” For she really knew nothing of life except dressmaking; she was familiar with no part of it except the way to Dinard’s.  She had been living a little life, with little standards, little creeds, little compromises.  And yet, though the personality of O’Hara had enlarged her vision of the world, it had not altered her superficial view of the man.  She still saw him outwardly at least without the glamour of romance—­she still thought of him as boisterous, uneducated, slangy—­but she was beginning almost unconsciously to distinguish between the faults of manner and the faults of character; she was beginning to be tolerant.

From Fanny’s open door a humming voice floated out to her, and going inside, she found the girl, in a new frock, practising a dance step before the mirror.  “This is the lame duck, mother, but it’s different from the one we danced last year.”

“Yes, dear, it’s very pretty.”  Stopping before the dressing-table, Gabriella frowned on the photograph of a young man in a silver frame—­a young man with a fascinating smile and inane features.

“Fanny, where did you get this?”

“Oh, mother, I didn’t mean you to see it.  I meant to put it away.”

“Where did you get it?”

“He sent it to me.  I wrote and asked him for it, and it has his autograph.  Isn’t he handsome?  That’s just the way he looked in ’Stolen Sweets’ last winter.”

“Well, he looks like a calf, I think,” returned Gabriella severely.  “I suppose you may keep it out until you get tired of it, but please try to be sensible, Fanny.”  Though she spoke jestingly, she was secretly disturbed by the discovery of the photograph.  “If she were not pretty, it wouldn’t matter,” she thought, “but she is so pretty that almost any man might be tempted to begin a flirtation.  Thank Heaven, she didn’t take a fancy to Mr. O’Hara.  That would have been a calamity.”  For, in spite of the fact that she had become personally reconciled to O’Hara, she was as firmly resolved as ever to keep Fanny out of his sight.  “You know so many nice boys, dear,” she resumed after a minute, “that I think you might be content to let actors alone.”

“But boys are so stupid, mother.”  Fanny’s tone was withering in its disdain.  “They are wrapped up in sports, and I despise sports.”

“Then you oughtn’t to tease them as you do.  You’re too young to have fancies.”

“I am sixteen.”

“Well, that is much too young for anything of that sort.  I like you to have boy friends, but I don’t like you to be foolish.  What has become of that attractive boy, Carlie’s brother?  He doesn’t come here any more, and I’m afraid you’ve hurt his feelings.”

“Oh, mother,” hummed Fanny to the music of the lame duck as she practised before the mirror, “how can you really hurt a man?”