Leave it to Doris. Ethel Hueston
and mystery go in opposite directions and never look back." She was studying him curiously. "I beg your pardon, but I do not recall your name. It is very stupid of me—"
"Not at all. You met so many when you first came in. It is quite natural that you should forget a few."
Doris thought it was not natural to forget those kind quizzical eyes, and that kind teasing voice, but she did not say so. Instead she waited. No information was forthcoming.
She laughed at him, wonderingly. "But I still do not know your name."
"No? Then here is a bit of mystery for you. Who am I? Whence do I come? Why am I here? I am a stranger, but you will see me again."
"You must be one of the new school-teachers or a professor in the college," she ventured, quite tingling with the bit of novelty new to her.
"Yes? Well, I am going to run away now and leave you to your chaperoning. But you must not forget me, little morning-glory."
"Why, my father called me that just before I left the house."
"There you see, I am a wizard. I can read your inmost thoughts. I—"
"I hope not," said Doris quickly.
"Come and have an ice with me before I go." He led her through a quiet hallway to a corner of the wide porch, and brought ices for her, and cake. And all the time he kept up that boyish teasing chatter, and always she watched him with curiosity and interest.
"You are too sensible to be inquisitive. You should say, Here is a brand from the burning, I must sow a good seed in his heart. And you should not even ask who, nor what, nor whither."
"I know it, but I do. If you were just ordinary, I should not care. But I can't imagine! You haven't been here a long time, that is certain. Or I should have seen you before. And if I had, I should remember. You are not a college student, for you are too old—and too clever."
"The last is an open insult, and the first is only dimly veiled. Now walk with me to the gate, Miss Morning-Glory." And at the gate he said, in a curious, half-sad voice, quite different from the gay bantering tone that had excited her curiosity, "You are a nice little thing," and went away.
Doris looked after him in astonishment. "Well, can you beat that?" she ejaculated. "Here I go through high school, and through college, and now when I am a grown-up old woman, and the head of a house, and the General of a mob—I get myself all mixed up in a funny business like this. Who in the world can he be? And where in the world did he come from? But he said I should see him again. I wonder what that bad little Rosalie is at now?"
And though she went immediately back to her sister, she did not forget the kind gray eyes and the kind gay voice.
"Did you have a nice time, Doris?" asked Mrs. Andrieson as they were driving swiftly homeward.
"Wonderful," said Doris in a voice of ecstatic content.
Mrs. Andrieson looked at her curiously. "I am afraid I neglected you. I had such a hard time keeping the boys from quarreling over Rosalie, and I knew you would not get into mischief."
Now that it was all over, and the excitement and the thrill were gone, Rosalie was quivering down to the very tips of her slippers. She had disgraced the manse, she had messed things up for father—and he was such a darling—Oh, Doris should not have let her! People would think it was father's fault—she had not thought of that before, now she could think of nothing else. "He is a good man," people would say, "but he can not control his children." And he did work so hard, and was so patient—and so many times his eyes looked tired, and once in a while, but not often, he would admit that his head ached a bit.
Doris was sympathetic as always, sympathetic in that unvoiced silence that understands everything, and hurts not a single particle. She knew by instinct that Rosalie was sick at heart. So they talked of other things, and after they got into bed she said tenderly:
"You were lovely, Rosalie, and I was so proud of you. And though you were very gay and lively, you were sweet, and had a sort of Presbyterian dignity about you that made you different."
Rosalie kissed her quickly, but did not speak.
When the family met again at the breakfast table Zee was overwhelming in her interest.
"How was the party? Did Rosalie flirt? Did all the men fall down at her feet stone dead?"
"No, little goose, they didn't. Men don't any more. And Rosalie did not flirt—exactly—and the party was glorious."
Doris did not glance at Rosalie, intent on the oatmeal before her.
"Were you the most beautiful ones there? Was anybody dazzled? Did the women wear low-necked dresses? Alice Graves says they don't wear any sleeves at all. Did they dance? Were there any members there? What did you have to eat?"
"Oh, you little chatter-box! How can I answer so many questions? Rosalie was dazzling—did you ever dream that I could dazzle anything? Yes, the ladies did. Yes, they danced. Yes, there were a lot of members. They had ices, and cakes, and coffee, and things to drink and—"
"And father," said Rosalie suddenly, "I pinned down the lace in the neck of my dress so it would show my shoulders."
He turned to Doris for confirmation.
"Just a little, father," she said loyally. "It did not show much, and Rosalie looked beautiful. I did not object to it."
"And I danced."
This was nothing short of a bomb bursting upon them. Even Zee was silenced. Doris felt all the pain of motherhood over an erring first-born. Slowly their father rallied.
"Did you do it—well? I hope you didn't stumble, or walk on ladies' dresses, or anything."
"She did it beautifully," said Doris meekly.
"Father, I ask you frankly, as man to man, is it wrong to dance?"
"We have been taught, Rosalie," he began slowly, but she interrupted him.
"That isn't fair. You tell me what you think. Why should we leave it to other men that we don't know? How can they decide? Do they know more about it than we do? It doesn't condemn it in the Bible. That would be decisive. But why do these other men take the privilege of deciding things for the rest of us?"
"They were wise men, and good. We let great statesmen make our laws, and we obey. We let great teachers tell us what and how to study that we may become educated, and we obey them. We let great doctors tell us how to safeguard our health, and we obey them. We let the leaders in all other professions tell us what to do, where to go, what to eat, what to wear—and we obey. We might trust the fathers of the church a little, don't you think?"
"But it is such a simple thing. And so natural. Just moving to music, that is all. Soldiers love to march to the drum, children prance to the music of the band. It is human nature."
"My dear, if you want to move to music, let Zee here go up and down town beating a drum for you, and you march your little head off."
Rosalie joined the laughter. "I like the other kind better. Then you truly think it is—dangerous, or wrong, or unwise, or something?"
"I have never danced myself, dear."
"Stand up here, and let me show you. Now, you go this way. One, two, three; one, two, three; skippity, skip, skip; one, two, three—and that is all there is to it."
"Simple, isn't it?"
"Perfectly simple. Now is that wrong?"
"Well, Rosalie, I tell you frankly, as man to man, if I were young and had a soft shoulder like yours against my arm, and a pretty face like yours very close to my lips—I should probably be tempted to kiss it."
"Oh, father," cried Rosalie, joining the burst of laughter. "You would not do it, surely."
"Not in public, no. And I may add, if I had a pretty