“What a ridiculous girl you are, Persis,” said Lisa putting down the paper.
“You don’t mean to say the hoppers have gone,” returned Persis. “I thought you would never get a chance to have any dinner. We have all finished long ago. I wonder why some persons will be so stupid as to make calls just at meal-time, and neither go when the meal is ready nor expect to come to the table.”
“I suppose they don’t know exactly how to get away.”
“I don’t believe it is anything of the kind. It is a pure lack of consideration,—absolute selfishness; but I suppose you couldn’t expect common sense of toads and grasshoppers. I remember now how Ned Carew used to come and call on you in the middle of a hot summer afternoon before we went away last year. Everybody with any sense knows a girl hates to rig herself up in the midst of blazing heat. Why couldn’t he have waited till evening? I used to get so mad.”
“You didn’t have to entertain him.”
“No; but you did, and you used to look so comfortable in your white wrapper lolling in a cool room. I hated to see you obliged to make the exertion to go up-stairs and change your dress. Men haven’t very much sense about some things. I suppose they imagine girls are always sitting up in some fairy-like toilet ready to smile upon any chance admirer.”
“Some girls are.”
“Well, I’m not one of them. Where’s Mell?”
“I suppose she has gone to the Milesian’s.” And the two laughed, knowing Mellicent’s annoyance at having Audrey so termed.
“What grown-up girls we are getting to be,” remarked Persis, after a short silence. “I am in my eighteenth year, and you are nearly out of your teens. Isn’t it appalling?”