One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed.  It is such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls.  But they were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and decorations before people began to come, and they went into the conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things.  They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and pretended they were debutantes at the ball, so they stayed longer than they knew.  Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain.  Before they could move or say they were there, they heard him say this—­Kittie remembers just what it was: 

“I have spent six years following you, and you’ve treated me as if I were a dog at the end of a string.  This thing must end.  I must have you, or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to be.  Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night.”

Wasn’t it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel?  They did not want to listen, but some instinct told them Josephine and George might not be glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn’t hear.  Kittie didn’t.  She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made things kind of different.  It was all in the family, anyhow.  So Kittie heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in life.  And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love him.  Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man.  You can imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes how grown-up people manage such things.  She said she was so afraid she’d miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards.  But she didn’t miss anything.  She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, and she wouldn’t, and finally they left the conservatory.  After that Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs.

The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which Mabel had never seen there before.  It was grim and determined.  She said she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, but get her skates and come out.  Mabel did, and they went straight to George Morgan’s house, which was only a few blocks away.  He was very rich and had a beautiful house.  An English butler came to the door.  Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and invited them in.  When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had breakfasted.