smiling through her tears. "Don't you know that's all a girl of my age lives for—matrimony and a kennel? I mean to have one, now we will have our own preserves. It will be ripping, you know."
"Certainly, our own preserves," said David, still dryly, thinking how Cassandra would wonder what preserves were, and what she would say if told that in preserves, wild harmless animals were kept from being killed by the common people for food, in order that those of his own class might chase them down and kill them for their amusement.
"Oh, David, I remember how you used to be always putting on a look like that, and thinking a lot of nasty things under your breath. I hoped you would come home vastly improved. Was it what I said about matrimony? Mamma knows it's true."
"Hardly as you put it, my child; there is much besides for a girl to think about."
"You said 'chances' yourself, mamma."
"Certainly, but that is for me to consider. You must remember that it was you who refused to have your coming out last year."
"I didn't want my good times cut short then, mamma, and have to take up proprieties—or at least I would have had to be dreadfully proper for a while, anyway—and now—why I have to be naturally; and here I am unable to come out for another year yet and my hair streaming down my back all the time. I'm sure I can't see how my chances are in the least improved by it