"What is the matter with you?" he asked, studying her face curiously, and with a doubtful sound in his voice. "I don't believe that strange freak of yours did you any good."
"It did me more good than anything that ever happened to me in my life," Flossy said, positively.
If she could only have explained to him just what the nature of that good was! Possibly she might have tried, only there sat her father. Who could tell when his interest in the Times would cease, and he give attention to her? Flossy could not understand why she should be so afraid of her father in this matter; but she was very much afraid.
The talk they had was of that kind known as "small." To Flossy it seemed exceedingly small, and she did not know how to make it otherwise. She began to wonder if she and Col. Baker really had any ideas in common; yet Col. Baker could talk with gentlemen, and talk well. It was simply the habit of being frippery with the ladies that made his words seem so foolish to Flossy.
Contrary to her expectation, her brother Charlie suddenly appeared on the scene; and for a time she was privileged to slip into the background. Charlie had been to hear the choral, and Col. Baker was very anxious to know as to its success. You would have supposed them to be talking about a prima donna concert. At last Charlie turned to Flossy with the trying question:
"Sis, why didn't you go to the choral? I thought you were coming for her, Baker. Didn't you tell me so?"
"I came, but was too late. Miss Flossy had already betaken herself to the First Church."
"So you missed the choral?"
"Well, only part of it. I went for an hour; then I left, and went in search of your sister, to discover if I could what special attractions First Church had for her to-night."
Now this fashion of going to one service until he was tired, and then quietly slipping out in search of something more attractive, was peculiar to Col. Baker. Flossy had known of his doing it on several different occasions. The very most that she had thought about it had been, that it was making one's self very conspicuous. She didn't believe she would like to do it, even if she were a man. But to-night the action had taken an irreverent shade that it never had before. She discovered that she utterly disapproved of it. There seemed to be many things in Col. Baker that met with her disapproval. Meantime the talk went on.