“I’m sorry,” said Dosia, in a low voice. “I won’t do it again.”
“Well, never mind that now.” Lois hesitated, and then took the plunge: “I want to speak to you about Lawson Barr, Dosia.”
Dosia’s color, which came and went so prettily when she spoke, always left her when she was really moved, or at the times when girls ordinarily blush. She turned pale now and her eyes became defiant, but she did not answer.
The other stumbled along, sorry and ashamed, as if she were the culprit:
“People have been commenting—I hear that he has been with you a great deal lately.”
“Where?” The girl’s voice was hard.
“On the train.”
“He went in to town with me twice last week, and twice the week before—yes, and yesterday. And he came out with me once.” She counted out the times as if they were a contravention. “I don’t see how I am going to help it if people speak to me, I can’t tell them to go away. I don’t want him to do it! Mr. Sutton took me over the ferry one day; was that commented on, too?”
There was a passion of tears in her voice, called forth by outraged modesty—and there is no modesty that feels itself more outraged than that of the girl who knows she has given some slight cause for reproof.
“Dosia, be reasonable,” said Lois, annoyed that her talk was being made so hard for her. “I know it’s horrid to be ‘spoken to,’ but Justin is very particular, and he feels that we are responsible for you. And, besides, you wouldn’t want it thought that you liked Lawson’s society. I am to go in to town with you to-morrow, and we will get the hour for your lesson changed.” She paused for some answer, but none came, and she went on: “I told Justin that he need not worry, there was no danger of your caring too much for Lawson! That’s nonsense. Why, you know all about him, and just what he amounts to. But, of course, if you are seen with him——”