“Anyone else in the library?” Florence asked in a dissatisfied tone.

“No.  I had it all to myself!” the girl answered pleasantly.

“Why didn’t you go down to the courts, dear?  I think Papa is playing!”

“I didn’t think of it, M’ma,” said Charlotte lucidly.

“What a dreadful age it is,” mused Rachael.  “I wonder which phase is hardest to deal with:  Billy or poor little Carlotta?” Aloud, from the fulness of her own happiness, she said:  “Suppose you walk down to the courts with me, Infant, and we will see what’s going on?”

“If M’ma doesn’t object,” said the dutiful daughter.

“No, go along,” Florence said with vague discontent.  “I’ve got to do some telephoning, anyway.”

Charlotte, being eighteen, could think of nothing but herself, and Rachael, wrapped in her own romance, was amused, as they walked along, to see how different her display of youthful egotism was from Billy’s, and yet how typical of all adolescence.

“Isn’t it a wonderful afternoon, Aunt Rachael?” Charlotte said, as one in duty bound to be entertaining.  “I do think they’ve picked out such a charming site for the club!” And then, as Rachael did not answer, being indeed content to drink in the last of the long summer day in silence, Charlotte went on, with an air blended of comprehension and amusement:  “Poor M’ma, she would so like me to be a little, fluffy, empty-headed butterfly of a girl, and I know I disappoint her!  It isn’t that I don’t like boys,” pursued Charlotte, the smooth and even stream of her words beginning to remind Rachael of Florence, “or that they don’t like me; they’re always coming to me with their confidences and asking my advice, but it’s just that I can’t take them seriously.  If a boy wants to kiss me, why, I say to him in perfect good faith, ’Why shouldn’t you kiss me, John?  When I’m fond of a person I always like to kiss him, and I’m sure I’m fond of you!’” Charlotte stopped for a short laugh full of relish.  “Of course that takes the wind out of their sails completely,” she went on, “and we have a good laugh over it, and are all the better friends!  That is,” said Charlotte, thoroughly enjoying herself, “I treat my men friends exactly as I do my girl friends.  Do you think that’s so extraordinary, Aunt Rachael?  Because I can’t do anything different, you know—­really I can’t!”

“Just be natural—­that’s the best way,” said Rachael from the depths of an icy boredom.

“Of course, some day I shall marry,” the girl added in brisk decision, “because I love a home, and I love children, and I think I would be a good mother to children.  But meanwhile, my books and my friends mean a thousand times more to me than all these stupid boys!  Why is it other girls are so crazy about boys, Aunt Rachael?” asked Charlotte, brightly sensible.  “Of course I like them, and all that, but I can’t see the sense of all these notes and telephones and flirtations.