"Amy taught me. She takes regular dancing lessons from a man, a dollar a lesson, and then she teaches me. It is just like gym, you know, only at a dance there are men. Miss Graham says I am very graceful, and with my slender ankles and high insteps I would look lovely in dancing slippers. Now, Doris, don't be horrified, I am not going to dance. But you tell father we are invited, and— You sit out the dances, you know, if you are a preacher and can't dance—and you get behind a big fern, and the men tell you how lovely you are, and how much nicer it is to sit out with you than to go stumbling around over other girls' toes, getting their collars all sweated out, and how sweet and cool you look, and—"
"Rosalie!"
"They do not mean it, Doris, they just talk that way. And I know they do not mean it, so it does me no harm. And it is lots of fun. They all do it."
"They do not talk that way to me," said Doris virtuously.
"No, you do not give them a chance. If a man says you have beautiful blue eyes, you look him straight in the face and say, 'Yes, thank goodness, I need something to make up for my pug nose.' That is no way to talk to a man. You ought to drop your lashes like this, and then look up suddenly, and away again quickly, and laugh a little and say, 'Oh, you talk that way to every one—you do not mean it,' and then they say you are the only girl in the world—"
"Rosalie Artman, I think you are perfectly terrible. Where in the world do you learn all that silly stuff?"
"I do not learn it," laughed Rosalie. "I do not have to. It was born in me. I sort of breathe it. Tra, la, la, lalala. I can do a toe dance, Doris. I will teach you. Does father go to the Sessions to-night? Then we will have a lesson while he is gone. Oh, there come—"
"Rosalie, I want to ask you— Don't you think we ought to get along without Miss Carlton now? She is so sort of prim, and bossy—and it costs eighteen dollars a month—and if we do you can have nicer clothes, you know."
"Wouldn't be proper," said Rosalie lightly. "Beautiful girls must be properly guarded. And besides, I would have to do more work, and I don't like to work."