"I won't, unless you promise to go with us," he said.
"Why should you not go, Lois?" said Douglas, still standing at the door. "The boys want to go, and some one must be with them to keep them in order."
"Why, doctor, imagine me at a dancing party!" said Miss Lois, the peach-like color rising in her thin cheeks again.
"It is different here, Lois; everybody goes."
"Yes; even old Mrs. Kendig," said Tita, softly.
Miss Lois looked sharply at her; old Mrs. Kendig was fat, toothless, and seventy, and the active, spare New England woman felt a sudden wrath at the implied comparison. Griselda was not tried upon the subject of her age, or we might have had a different legend. But Tita looked as idly calm as a summer morning, and Miss Lois turned away, as she had turned a hundred times before, uncertain between intention and simple chance.
"Very well, then, I will go," she said. "How you bother me, Erastus!"
"No, I don't," said the youth, releasing her. "You know you like me, Miss Lois; you know you do."
"Brazen-face!" said Miss Lois, pushing him away. But any one could see that she did like him.
"Of course I may go, father?" said Tita, without stirring, but looking at him steadily.