“I am not going to interfere with your Allowence,” she went on.  “But I recall very distinctly that during Leila’s first year she came home with three evening wraps and one nightgown, having to borrow from one of her schoolmates, while that was being washed.  I feel that you should at least be warned.”

How could I then state that instead of bying nightgowns, et cetera, I had been sending violets?  I could not.  If Life to my Familey was a matter of petticoats, and to me was a matter of fragrant flours, why cause them to suffer by pointing out the diference?

I did not feel superior.  Only diferent.

That evening, while mother and Leila were out at a Festivaty, I gave father his neck-tie.  He was overcome with joy and for a moment could not speak.  Then he said: 

“Good gracious, Bab!  What a—­what a diferent necktie.”

I explained my reasons for buying it for him, and also Tom Gray’s objecting to it as to juvenile.

“Young impudense!” said father, refering to Tom.  “I darsay I am quite an old fellow to him.  Tie it for me, Bab.”

“Though old of body, you are young in mentalaty,” I said.  But he only laughed, and then asked about the pin, which I wore over my heart.

“Where did you get that?” he asked in quite a feirce voice.

I told him, but not quite all.  It was the first time I had concealed an Amour from my parents, having indeed had but few, and I felt wicked and clandestine.  But, alas, it is the way of the heart to conceal its deepest feelings, save for blushes, which are beyond bodily control.

My father, however, mearly sighed and observed: 

“So it has come at last!”

“What has come at last?” I asked, but feeling that he meant Love.  For although forty-two and not what he once was, he still remembers his Youth.

But he refused to anser, and inquired politely if I felt to much grown-up, with the Allowence and so on, to be held on knees and occasionaly tickeled, as in other days.

Which I did not.

That night I stood at the window of my Chamber and gazed with a heaving heart at the Gray residense, which is next door.  Often before I had gazed at its walls, and considered them but brick and morter, and needing paint.  Now my emotions were diferent.  I realized that a House is but a shell, covering and protecting its precious contents from weather and curious eyes, et cetera.

As I stood there, I percieved a light in an upper window, where the nursery had once been in which Tom—­in those days when a child, Tommy—­and I had played as children, he frequently pulling my hair and never thinking of what was to be.  As I gazed, I saw a figure come to the window and gaze fixedly at me.  It was he.

Hannah was in my room, making a list of six of everything which I needed, so I dared not call out.  But we exchanged gestures of afection and trust across the void, and with a beating heart I retired to bed.