"No," replied Isabel, shortly. "I'm afraid of the water."
"Juliet can row. She won the women's canoe race in the regatta last
Summer. The prize was twenty-five dollars in gold."
"Romie taught me," put in Juliet.
"We'll teach you this Summer," said Romeo, with a frank, boyish smile that showed his white teeth.
"Thank you," responded Isabel, inwardly vowing that they wouldn't.
"Juliet can do most everything I can," went on Romeo, with the teacher's pardonable pride in his pupil. "She can climb a tree in her knickers, and fish and skate and row and swim and fence, and play golf and tennis, and shoot, and dive from a spring board, and she can ride anything that has four legs."
"Romeo taught me," chanted Juliet, in a voice surprisingly like his own.
There was an awkward pause, then Romeo turned to his hostess. "What can you do?" he asked, meaning to be deferential. Isabel thought she detected a faint trace of sarcasm, so her answer was rather tart.
"I don't do many of the things that men do," she said, "but I speak French and German, I can sing and play a little, sew and embroider, and trim hats if I want to, and paint on china, and do two fancy dances. And when I go back home, I'm going to learn to run an automobile."
The twins looked at each other. "We never thought of it," said Juliet, much crestfallen.