In giving him hints about new attentions, she never made the matter personal. She would say, casually: "Now there's one thing a girl just loves, Jarge, and you ought to know it. It's to have her beau do unexpected things for her. I mean if he's used to giving her candy every night, it just tickles her to death to get up some morning and find a little package waiting for her. And if he goes to the trouble of sticking in a little note that says: "'My dearest Sweetheart, I couldn't wait until to-night to give you this....' why, she just goes crazy about him. Whatever you do, Jarge, you mustn't forget that girls love to get notes all the time." This particular instruction Rosie had frequently to repeat before George put it into execution. "Aw, now, Rosie," he used to plead, "you know perfectly well I ain't nuthin' of a letter-writer." But Rosie was firm. "Do as you like," she would say, "but you can take it from me they ain't nuthin' like letters to make a girl sit up. You're practising on me, so you might as well practise right. Besides, it's not hard, really it's not. You don't have to be fancy. Why, I once heard a girl tell about a letter that she thought was great and all it said was, 'Say, kid, maybe I ain't crazy about you!' Now is it so awful hard to tell a girl you're crazy about her if you are? And that's all that any love-letter says anyhow." "Seems to me," George grumbled one day, "for a kid you know an awful lot about love-letters." "Of course I do," Rosie told him. "I know just the kind I'd like to get and that's the kind every girl would like to get." All such discussions took place in the privacy of their pseudo-courtship. Who would have the heart to be censorious if, to the outside world, Rosie began to bear herself with something of the air of a lady who has a knight, of a girl who has a beau? It would have been beyond human nature for Rosie not to remark periodically to Janet McFadden: "What do you suppose it is that makes Jarge Riley treat me so kind? He just seems to lie awake nights to think up nice things to do." Janet, being a true friend, would give a long sigh and murmur: "Don't it beat all, Rosie, the way some girls have beaux from the beginning and some don't. I suppose it runs in your family. You know Tom Sullivan is always asking about you. Whenever I go to Aunt Kitty's or when Tom comes to our house, the first thing he says is, 'How's Rosie O'Brien these days?' If only he wasn't so bashful, he'd invite you to the movies--you know he would. Of course he asks me because we're cousins, but I tell you one thing, Rosie: you're the one he'd like to take." What Janet was always saying about Tom Sullivan's devotion to Rosie was perfectly true but, nevertheless, it was so generous in Janet to acknowledge it that Rosie was always ready to declare: "Aw, now, Janet, you needn't go jollyin' me like that! Tom likes you awful well and you know he does."