"You are eleven years old, Theresa. I don't want you to be an ignorant woman. Imagining things is not knowing them, but when you know them you can embroider them without much harm." She liked the expression, and nodded. "At present," he went on, "you are like a woman who has a needle and thread and no cloth to work on. She is making patterns in the air, and they vanish." "No," she said; "they are inside." "But she can show them to no one else. And--and when you write your books, Theresa, is no one but you to see them?" Oh no, she would not like that. "But writing books is different. It's like poets." "What do you mean, my dear?" "Born, not made, you know." "I don't think you will find it so simple when you try, and birth is not always easy." "No, it isn't. I know that. Bessie's sister-in-law----" He flushed and interrupted with nervous speech. "So you will try to work hard, Theresa." "Yes, I suppose I'd better, but I hope I won't get like the girls who do." To add new qualities to herself or to change old characteristics was, she dimly felt even at this age, to tamper with the sacredness of an original. Technically, it might be improved on, but the individuality, the oneness, would be lost. She would admit the folly of flaming into tempers, but she did not like to think of herself without them: in themselves, tempers were evil, but when they were hers they became good. She did not want to be industrious; the virtue was not picturesque, and it was not hers; but if it was an instrument necessary to fashion herself into the shape she had designed for the future which was so conveniently far off, then she must learn to use it. Mentally, she picked it up and put it in her pocket, and considered herself complete. On this subject, too, she made her usual half-reluctant reference. "Is Alexander a worker?" She knew the answer before it came, and was ready with her grimace. "He's perfect, isn't he? I don't like that boy." "You would like him if you knew him." She stamped her foot. "I wouldn't! Oh, why do you say that? How do you know? I hate people to be so sure about me. Rub it out, quick!" "Very well; it's rubbed out." "No, it isn't. You still believe it! It's what Grace says about girls--'You'd like her, Terry'--and it makes me hate them. Anyhow, they're rather silly girls, her friends. They giggle and they smile at boys." "There's no harm in smiling at boys, Theresa. I wish you had some brothers." "So do I. I'd love it, but I don't believe Grace wants them. She has heaps of sweethearts--heaps. There's one who gives her a buttonhole every Saturday. Haven't you noticed it? She wears it on Sunday, and keeps it in water all the week. It's horrid by the end, but she won't throw it away till she gets another. He's quite big--seventeen, I think."