"That is plenty, thanks," cried Rosalie, laughing nervously. "If it is too terribly awful, I won't do it, Doris," she said, looking directly at her sister.
Doris returned the gaze with honest searching eyes. "It isn't too terribly bad, Rosalie. And it does look lovely—and lots of our girls wear them much lower even at the socials—but father—"
"Oh, father would never know the difference. An inch or so of skin is nothing to us preachers, you know."
It was a lovely evening, in spite of Rosalie's naughtiness. Doris was fascinated as she watched the lightly moving figures swaying so rhythmically when the music said sway, and though she so many times had to say, "I am sorry, thank you, I do not dance," she was never left alone, and the hours were delightfully frittered with one and another of the men—not Christian Endeavor men, who had to talk of church things when they talked with members of the manse—but regular men, who went places, and did things, and had their names in the paper—regular men who talked of things that interested them. And of course that would interest Doris, who all her life had been in training for interest in others' lives.
Rosalie, after two or three painful refusals, clenched her slim white hands and ran to Doris.
"General," she whispered hurriedly, "you may shoot me at sunrise if you like, but I tell you right now that I am going to dance, dance, dance the very toes off my slippers. Yes, sir; I am. And it will be worth a good big punishment. To stand here like a mummy and say, 'I can't'—it is more than flesh and blood can stand—my flesh and blood, anyhow."
Doris was nothing if not honest, and she had to admit that Rosalie did seem almost predestined for that one-two-three-skippity-skip-skip business! But the members— Oh, of course, the members were doing it themselves, and Doris could see a deacon drinking something that— Well, Doris knew they never served it at the Endeavor socials—but things were so different with us preachers, so very different. And it would hurt father, that was the worst of it, and he was such a good dear old thing— But Doris had to sympathize with Rosalie a little. Was it possible that Providence might have erred a tiny bit in putting such loveliness and such naughtiness and such adorable sweetness into the gentle environs of a manse?
So intent was Doris upon the graceful figure of her winsome Problem that she did not see the man who had stopped at her side and was looking down with quizzical laughing eyes into her anxious face.
"My, such a lot of trouble," he said at last, and Doris looked up astonished.