“Please oblige me,” Mr. Bromley interrupted. “Don’t say it again.” His tone was brusque, and she looked up inquiringly to find him frowning with annoyance. She decided to change the subject. “Do you care much for Christmas, Mr. Bromley?” she asked, in the key of polite small talk. “It strikes me as terribly tiresome, myself. I’m positively looking forward to the next school term.” “Are you?” “Yes—and oh! there was something I thought of the other day I wanted to ask you. Are you a Republican or a Democrat, Mr. Bromley?” “Neither.” “That’s so much more distinguished,” Cornelia said. “I mean it seems so much more distinguished not to be in politics. Do you believe in woman suffrage?” “No.” “Neither do I,” she said, and made a serious decision instantly. “I’m never going to vote, myself. The more I think about books and life, Mr. Bromley, the less I care about—about”—she hesitated, having begun the sentence without foreseeing its conclusion—“well, about things in general and everything,” she finally added. The gentleman beside her looked puzzled; but Cornelia was unaware of the sweeping vagueness of her remark. She was not in a condition to take note of such details, her consciousness being too preoccupied with the fact that she was walking with him who dwelt upon the summit of her mountain—walking with him and maintaining a conversation with him upon an intellectual footing, so to speak. And as she felt that a special elegance was demanded by the occasion, she made her voice a little artificial and obliterated our alphabet’s least fashionable consonant from her enunciation entirely. She waved a pretty little ungloved hand in a gesture of airy languor. “Most things seem such a baw, don’t you think?” she said. “Bore?” he inquired, correctly interpreting her effort. “They certainly shouldn’t seem so to you, at your age.” “My _age_?” she echoed, and gave forth an affected little scream. “Don’t talk to me about my _age_! Why, half the time I feel I’m at least a hundred.” Her companion’s reception of the information was somewhat dry. “Not much _more_, I trust,” he said, and looked hopefully forward into the distance as if to some goal or terminus of this excursion. But Cornelia’s exaltation was too high for her to be aware of any slight appearances that might lower it. “Indeed I do,” she insisted. “Why, when I look at the classes of younger girls that have come into the school in the years and years I’ve been there, I feel a thousand. I do, positively, I do assure you.” From beneath a plaintive brow, Mr. Bromley’s eyes continued to search the distance hopefully, and he made no response.