"Why, Miss Carewe, you don't suppose I'm thinking about the chiffon dress and the roses and all that on my own account, do you? I'd be so dead I wouldn't know anything about it; but I think it would be perfectly sweet for George. He'd know I had planned it all because I was so devoted to him, and I should think that would be a great comfort to him, shouldn't you, Laura May?" Laura May agreed, and Belinda shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Serious argument was always wasted upon this light-headed group of sentimentalists. There had been a time when, urged on by conscience, she had considered it necessary to labor with Amelia about her lightning-change _affaires de coeur_, had talked to her as she would have talked to an ordinary, reasonable girl about the folly and cheapness of such episodes, had tried to open her eyes to the fine ideals of girlhood, had urged upon her the desirability of perfect frankness and confidence in her relations with her mother and father. Amelia had only opened her big blue eyes wider and listened politely but uncomprehendingly to a language she could not understand. She adored Miss Carewe, but she realised that the adored one had the failings common to aged folk and lacked, entirely, any understanding of love's young dream. "You'd think Miss Carewe wasn't too old to understand," she said to Laura May later; "but perhaps she's had an unfortunate love affair that has made her bitter and suspicious." And, out of the softness of her heart, she forgave, in one who had "suffered," even a callous lack of sympathy concerning matters of the affections. Belinda took her failure to Miss Ryder, who smiled as she listened. "My dear Miss Carewe," she said, when the tale was ended, "you are right in being conscientious, but you mustn't tilt at windmills. There are girls and girls. Fortunately, a majority of them are amenable to reason, simple minded and comparatively sensible. They have had wise mothers and proper home training. But I've seen a great many girls of Amelia's type, too far advanced in foolishness before they come to us to be straightened out here. They pass silly girlhoods and usually develop into plump, amiable women, devoted to husbands and babies, and given to talking about servants and clothes when they don't talk about the husbands and babies. We must do all we can for such girls, see that they are carefully taught and zealously guarded. No young gentleman calls here on reception night unless I have had a written permission from the parents of the girl upon whom he calls; but because a few of the girls are silly, I will not shut the sensible girls away from social training. "You can influence the Amelias--but within certain limitations. As for making them see things in the sane way--the thing isn't humanly possible. Do your best with them, but don't take their absurdities too seriously."