Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/142

 your mother,” with a light hand on her shoulder. “You are so young—four years is very, little. Of course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you are not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really needed to, we shouldn’t have the reputation that we have. The girls to whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as you.”

Three weeks—but he had waited seven years!

“I am very childish,” said the girl. “Of course I will stay. And some of it I like very much. It’s only that mamma doesn’t understand. She overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I’d rather have come when mamma was a girl.”

“I see. I have thought that, too.”