“Work!” mother said.  “Career!  What next?  Why can’t you be like Leila, and settle down to haveing a good time?”

“Leila and I are diferent,” I said loftily, for I resented her tone.  “Leila is a child of the moment.  Life for her is one grand, sweet Song.  For me it is a serious matter. `Life is real, life is earnest, and the Grave is not its goal,’” I quoted in impasioned tones.

(Because that is the way I feel.  How can the Grave be its goal?  There must be something beyond.  I have thought it all out, and I beleive in a world beyond, but not in a hell.  Hell, I beleive, is the state of mind one gets into in this world as a result of one’s wicked Acts or one’s wicked Thoughts, and is in one’s self.)

As I have said, the other side of the Compromise was that I was not to carry Flasks with me, or drink any punch at parties if it had a stick in it, and you can generally find out by the taste.  For if it is what Carter Brooks calls “loaded” it stings your tongue.  Or if it tastes like cider it’s probably Champane.  And I was not to smoke any cigarettes.

Mother was holding out on the Sweater at that time, saying that Sis had a perfectly good one from Miami, and why not wear that?  So I put up a strong protest about the cigarettes, although I have never smoked but once as I think the School knows, and that only half through, owing to getting dizzy.  I said that Sis smoked now and then, because she thought it looked smart; but that, if I was to have a Career, I felt that the sootheing influence of tobaco would help a lot.

So I got the new Sweater, and everything looked smooth again, and mother kissed me on the way out, and said she had not meant to be harsch, but that my great uncle Putnam had been a notorious drunkard, and I looked like him, although of a more refined tipe.

There was a dreadful row that night, however, when father came home.  We were all dressed for dinner, and waiting in the drawing room, and Leila was complaining about me, as usual.

“She looks older than I do now, mother,” she said.  “If she goes to the seashore with us I’ll have her always taging at my heals.  I don’t see why I can’t have my first summer in peace.”  Oh, yes, we were going to the shore, after all.  Sis wanted it, and everybody does what she wants, regardless of what they prefer, even Fishing.

“First summer!” I exclaimed.  “One would think you were a teething baby!”

“I was speaking to mother, Barbara.  Everyone knows that a Debutante only has one year nowadays, and if she doesn’t go off in that year she’s swept away by the flood of new Girls the next fall.  We might as well be frank.  And while Barbara’s not a beauty, as soon as the bones in her neck get a little flesh on them she won’t be hopeless, and she has a flipant manner that Men like.”

“I intend to keep Barbara under my eyes this summer,” mother said firmly.  “After last Xmas’s happenings, and our Discovery today, I shall keep her with me.  She need not, however, interfere with you, Leila.  Her Hours are mostly diferent, and I will see that her friends are the younger boys.”