lihood
in Britain. I would not have been able to woo my very English wife in
any other language than her own, and my children might have been
Mexicans or Tahitians.
Miss
Mary Pope was a hoarder of unconsidered trifles. She had a way of
admiring the most trivial and worthless objects so pressingly that one
felt bound to lay them at her feet. She never refused anything at all.
It happened that we came to know that she was about to have a
birthday. What should we give her? Mother suggested a nice big box of
chocolates, my sister said brightly that an English-German dictionary
would make an ideal gift for an English teacher in Vienna. I suggested
diffidently that we should give her something she'd never think of
getting herself.
"Yes, but what, you goose?" said my mother.
"That coral necklet you never wear, mother, the one that has lain in your drawer ever since I can remember."
"But child," she said in reproof, "don't be foolish. That necklet is worth fifty gulden of anyone's money."
"What does that matter," I said, "since you never wear it?"
"Of course," said my mother with sarcasm, "it doesn't matter to you. Pray have you the money to pay for it?"
"I
could save up for it," I said, perhaps more out of cockiness than out
of affection for Miss Mary Pope. You know how one's will-power is
stiffened by family opposition.
I
won't say that I finally paid for that necklet with my own money. But
at any rate Miss Mary Pope had it. It was indeed a beauty, and when it
had been restrung,
