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288 because she has been jilted once, and he thinks it's such a mean thing to do."

"Perhaps she'll jilt him."

"I've no doubt she will, if anything better comes along. But Trix is getting passée, and I shouldn't wonder if she kept him to his word, just out of perversity, if nothing else."

"Poor Tom, what a fate!" said Polly, with what was meant to be a comical groan; but it sounded so tragical, that she saw it wouldn't pass, and hastened to hide the failure by saying, with a laugh, "If you call Trix passée at twenty-three, what shall we all be at twenty-five?"

"Utterly done with, and laid upon the shelf. I feel so already, for I don't get half the attention I used to have, and the other night I heard Maud and Grace wondering why those old girls 'didn't stay at home and give them a chance.'"

"How is Maudie?"

"Pretty well; but she worries me by her queer tastes and notions. She loves to go into the kitchen and mess, she hates to study, and said right before the Vincents, that she should think it would be great fun to be a beggar-girl, to go round with a basket, it must be so interesting to see what you'd get."

"Minnie said the other day she wished she was a pigeon, so she could paddle in the puddles, and not fuss about rubbers."

"By the way, when is her uncle coming back?" asked Fanny, who couldn't wait any longer, and joyfully seized the opening Polly made for her.

"I'm sure I don't know."