And it was so nice after the damp drive, after the jolting of the midge, in the dull and dreary afternoon! It was more than female virtue was equal to, to refuse that deceiving cup. Miss Mildmay said faintly: “None for me, please. I am going on to the----” But before she had ended this assertion she found herself, she knew not how, with a cup in her hand.
“Oh, Stella, my love,” cried Mrs. Shanks, “what tea yours is! And oh, how much sweeter you look, and how much better it is, instead of putting yourself in the way of a set of silly young officers, to sit there smiling at your old friends and pouring out the tea!”
Miss Mildmay gave a little gasp, and made a motion to put down the cup again, but she was not equal to the effort.
“Oh, it is the officers you object to!” cried Stella. “If it was curates perhaps you would like them better. I love the officers! they are so nice and big and silly. To be sure, curates are silly also, but they are not so easy and nice about it.”
Miss Mildmay’s gasp this time was almost like a choke. “Believe me,” she said, “it would be much better to keep clear of young men. You girls now are almost as bad as the American girls, that go about with them everywhere--worse, indeed, for it is permitted there, and it is not permitted here.”
“That makes it all the nicer,” cried Stella; “it’s delightful because it’s wrong. I wonder why the American girls do it when all the fun is gone out of it!”
“Depend upon it,” said Miss Mildmay, “it’s better to have nothing at all to do with young men.”
“But then what is to become of the world?” said the culprit gravely.
“It is quite true. The world would come to an end--there would be no more----”
“I think you are quite right in what you said, Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay. “It is a case that can’t be passed over. It is----”
“I never said anything of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, alarmed. “I said we must know what Stella had to say for herself----”
“And so you shall,” said Stella, with a toss of her saucy head. “I have as much as ever you like to say for myself. There is nothing I won’t say. Some more muffin, Mrs. Shanks--one little other piece. It is so good, and the first of the season. But this is not enough toasted. Look after the tea, Katherine, while I toast this piece for Miss Mildmay. It is much nicer when it is toasted for you at a nice clear fire.”