"Just help it by only doing as you are told until you are able to judge for yourself. Look at the silly way you have been talking this afternoon! What must Count Gustav have thought of you? Never be so silly again. You must be married now, you know. When a girl lets a man kiss her, she has to marry him."
Beth had been watching her mother's fingers as she knitted until she was half mesmerised by the bright glint of the needles; but now she woke up and burst out laughing. "If that be the case," she said, "he is not the only one that I shall have to marry."
Mrs. Caldwell's hands dropped on her lap, and she looked up at Beth in dismay. "What do you mean?" she said.
"Just that," Beth answered.
"Do you mean to tell me you have allowed men to kiss you?" Mrs. Caldwell cried.
Beth looked up as if trying to keep her countenance.
"You wicked girl, how dare you?"
"Well, mamma, if it were wicked, why didn't you warn me?" Beth said. "How was I to know?"
"Your womanly instincts ought to have taught you better."
Unfortunately for this theory, all Beth's womanly instincts set in the opposite direction. Her father's ardent temperament warred in her with Aunt Victoria's Puritan principles, and there was no telling as yet which would prevail.