Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/41

 and drinking more than they wanted, and telling jokes about each other that weren't really funny, and some weren't even nice."

"You didn't appear to be having as good a time as they were," said the Dream.

"No," said Marjorie, "I didn't seem to know how to, and felt sort of like a wet blanket to them, and so I got away as soon as I could."

"And then?" said the Dream.

"The next group," said Marjorie, "was very different. They were all quite serious and as soon as I came they began to tell me what I ought to do;—that I ought to have a different colored dress, and that I ought to wear my hair differently, and ought to wear a different kind of shoes, and that my nose was the wrong shape, and that I ought to be somewhere else instead of there, and doing something else;—and the funny part was that no two of them advised me the same way about the same matter; and sometimes the same one told me so many ways not to do things, that there wasn't anything left."

"For instance?" asked the Dream.

"Well, one of them said that I must never put my left foot forward first, and told me who said so, and a whole lot of reasons why. And then after she had talked a while about something else, she told me that I must never put my right foot forward first, and told me who said so, and gave me a lot of reasons for that. 'Well,' I said, 'what must I do? Jump?' 'Oh, no!' she said, 'You must never jump!' 'But,' said I, 'If I never put my left foot forward first, and never