"Johnny dances beautifully; one couldn't have a better partner," said Hope.
"Oh, 'tisn't only a dancing partner Dorothea wants," spoke up Bessie Armitage, a keen-eyed, keen-witted girl, whose quiet observation was never very much at fault. "Dorothea wants a talking partner as well."
Dolly gave a little conscious giggle, and simperingly declared, with a toss of her head: "Oh, I know what you mean. You mean that I want a flirting partner; people are always accusing me of that, and I—"
"Flirting! how I hate that word, and how I hate the thing itself!" burst out Kate Van der Berg. "It's the cheapest word, and the cheapest thing to do; and for girls like us to put on such airs, and think we are doing something fine and grown-up. My brother Maurice, my oldest brother, has told me enough what young men think of half-grown girls who do such things."
"Oh, yes, I know; you told me, before I went away, how your brother made fun of young girls," cried Dorothea, angrily.
The hot color rose to Kate's very forehead, in her sudden shock of indignation. Then, as it slowly ebbed away, she said in a low, intense tone: "I told you that I had heard my brother tell how men either disliked the pertness of young girls, or else amused themselves by it for a little while, and then made fun of it,—that was what I said to you. He did not say that he made fun of them,—he couldn't do such a thing; and the reason he told me what others did, was to show me how such things were looked upon."
"And you told me because you thought I was one of those pert, forward, bold girls!" snapped out Dorothea.
"I was not telling you what he said, any more than the rest of the girls who were present; and what I told was brought out by something that was said at the time."
"Something that I said, I know. I was talking about my sister's gentlemen friends, and I said that I never found it hard to talk to them; and then you—"
"Hush, girls, there's the bell; the company is coming," broke in Myra Donaldson, "and we must get back into the 'drorrin'-room,' as Patrick calls it."