"By gosh, you bet I do!" cried Maria, italicising the words in her vehemence. "Well, look here, Kiddy, if a chap's sweet on me I let him be sweet, my dear, and that's all--till he's run to barley-sugar. What I don't let him savvy is, whether I care a twopenny damn for him. Soon as you do that, it's all up. Just let him hang round, and throw sheep's-eyes, till he's as soft as a jellyfish, and when he's right down ripe, roaring mad, go off and pretend to do a mash with some one else. That's the way to glue him, chicken." "But you don't have anything of him that way," objected Laura. Maria laughed herself red in the face. "What'n earth more d'you want? Why, he'll pester you with letters, world without end, and look as black as your shoe if you so much as wink at another boy. As for a kiss, if he gets a chance of one he'll take it you can bet your bottom dollar on that." "But you never get to know him!" "Oh, hang it, Laura, but you ARE rich! What d'you think one has a boy for, I'd like to know. To parlezvous about old Shepherd's sermons? You loony, it's only for getting lollies, and letters, and the whole dashed fun of the thing. If you go about too much with one, you soon have to fake an interest in his rotten old affairs. Or else just hold your tongue and let him blow. And that's dull work. D'you think it ever comes up a fellow's back to talk to you about your new Sunday hat! If it does, you can teach your grandmother to suck eggs." But, despite this wisdom, Laura could not determine how Maria would have acted had she stood in her shoes. And then, too, the elder girl had said nothing about another side of the question, had not touched on the sighs and simpers, the winged glances, and drooped, provocative lids--all the thousand and one fooleries, in short, which Laura saw her and others employ. There was a regular machinery of invitation and encouragement to be set in motion: for, before it was safe to ignore a wooer and let him dangle, as Maria advised, you had first to make quite sure he wished to nibble your bait.--And it was just in this elementary science that Laura broke down.