Now I have a qualaty which is well known at school, and frequently used to obtain holadays and so on.  It may be Magnatism, it may be Will.  I have a very strong Will, having as a child had a way of lying on the floor and kicking my feet if thwarted.  In school, by fixing my eyes ridgidly on the teacher, I have been able to make her do as I wish, such as not calling on me when unprepared, et cetera.

Full well I know the danger of such a Power, unless used for good.

I now made up my mind to use this Will, or Magnatism, on Leila, she being unsuspicious at the time and thinking that the thought of Marriage was her own, and no one else’s.

Being still awake when the Familey came upstairs, I went into her room and experamented while she was taking down her hair.

“Well?” she said at last.  “You needn’t stare like that.  I can’t do my hair this way without a Swich.”

“I was merely thinking,” I said in a lofty tone.

“Then go and think in bed.”

“Does it or does it not concern you as to what I was thinking?” I demanded.

“It doesn’t greatly concern me,” she replied, wraping her hair around a kid curler, “but I darsay I know what it was.  It’s written all over you in letters a foot high.  You’d like me to get married and out of the way.”

I was exultent yet terrafied at this result of my Experament.  Already!  I said to my wildly beating heart.  And if thus in five minutes what in the entire summer?

On returning to my Chamber I spent a pleasant hour planing my maid-of-honor gown, which I considered might be blue to mach my eyes, with large pink hat and carrying pink flours.

The next morning father and I breakfasted alone, and I said to him: 

“In case of festivaty in the Familey, such as a Wedding, is my Allowence to cover clothes and so on for it?”

He put down his paper and searched me with a peircing glanse.  Although pleasant after ten A. M. he is not realy paternal in the early morning, and when Mademoiselle was still with us was quite hateful to her at times, asking her to be good enough not to jabber French at him untill evening when he felt stronger.

“Whose Wedding?” he said.

“Well,” I said.  “You’ve got to Daughters and we might as well look ahead.”

“I intend to have to Daughters,” he said, “for some time to come.  And while we’re on the subject, Bab, I’ve got somthing to say to you.  Don’t let that romantic head of yours get filled up with Sweethearts, because you are still a little girl, with all your airs.  If I find any boys mooning around here, I’ll—­I’ll shoot them.”

Ye gods!  How intracate my life was becoming!  I engaged and my masculine parent convercing in this homacidal manner!  I withdrew to my room and there, when Jane Raleigh came later, told her the terrable news.

“Only one thing is to be done, Jane,” I said, my voice shaking.  “Tom must be warned.”