They still thought I was a little girl.  They patronized me.  I would hardly have been surprised If they had sent up a bread and milk supper on a tray.  It was then and there that I made up my mind to show them that I was no longer a mere child.  That the time was gone when they could shut me up in the nursery and forget me.  I was seventeen years and eleven days old, and Juliet, in Shakspeare, was only sixteen when she had her well-known affair with Romeo.

I had no plan then.  It was not until the next afternoon that the thing sprung (sprang?) full-pannoplied from the head of Jove.

The evening was rather dreary.  The family was going out, but not until nine thirty, and mother and Leila went over my clothes.  They sat, Sis in pink chiffon and mother in black and silver, and Hannah took out my things and held them up.  I was obliged to silently sit by, while my rags and misery were exposed.

“Why this open humiliation?” I demanded at last.  “I am the family Cinderella, I admit it.  But it isn’t necessary to lay so much emphacis on it, is it?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Barbara,” said mother.  “You are still only a Child, and a very untidy Child at that.  What do you do with your elbows to rub them through so?  It must have taken patience and aplication.”

“Mother” I said, “am I to have the party dresses?”

“Two.  Very simple.”

“Low in the neck?”

“Certainly not.  A small v, perhaps.”

“I’ve got a good neck.”  She rose impressively.

“You amaze and shock me, Barbara,” she said coldly.

“I shouldn’t have to wear tulle around my shoulders to hide the bones!” I retorted.  “Sis is rather thin.”

“You are a very sharp-tongued little girl,” mother said, looking up at me.  I am two inches taller than she is.

“Unless you learn to curb yourself, there will be no parties for you, and no party dresses.”

This was the speach that broke the Camel’s back.  I could endure no more.

“I think,” I said, “that I shall get married and end everything.”

Need I explain that I had no serious intention of taking the fatal step?  But it was not deliberate mendasity.  It was Despair.

Mother actually went white.  She cluched me by the arm and shook me.

“What are you saying?” she demanded.

“I think you heard me, mother” I said, very politely.  I was however thinking hard.

“Marry whom?  Barbara, answer me.”

“I don’t know.  Anybody.”

“She’s trying to frighten you, mother” Sis said.  “There isn’t anybody.  Don’t let her fool you.”

“Oh, isn’t there?” I said in a dark and portentious manner.

Mother gave me a long look, and went out.  I heard her go into father’s dressing-room.  But Sis sat on my bed and watched me.

“Who is it, Bab?” she asked.  “The dancing teacher?  Or your riding master?  Or the school plumber?”