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 eighteen-year-olds! I'll make a note of that. Well, tell me this: where did you meet all these fellows? How'd it all come about? I want a complete account of your activities since I saw you last. Unexpurgated. Abandon the toying with that hapless roll, and get at it!"

So Cecily described what she called "my renascence" and its aftermath. A triumphant tale, but she told it modestly. Jock guessed rather than heard how popular she had become. "Several people were nice to me at the beach this summer," she said, and he in his mind's eye saw whole stacks of straw hats with fraternity ribands, and droves of white flannel trousers. "I took in most of the big games this fall and the dances that went with them, and had quite a different time from the one I had at that prom at your college"—and Jock visualized relay after relay of eager stags. You could not know young men, and know Cecily as she was now, and not see how inevitably she must attract them.

He listened with deep attention, and not infrequently shouted aloud over some especially ingenuous twist she gave the story. She had, he noted, a certain wit and a sure feeling for the humorous. "A flapper with brains!" he told himself. He watched her with growing appreciation. Adorable. That was the word that occurred to him oftenest. Artless, spontaneous, effervescent, were others. She twinkled with animation. Her hands—little plump stubby hands that looked as though they should be playing with dolls—gesticulated continuously. Her face was charmingly mobile. "It talks," he decided. Her eyes talked too, and the remarkable lashes swept up, dropped down, fluttered, were never still. "Laughing lashes," he called them privately.