The others laughed. “You do act just like a boy in petticoats,” reproved Doris. “You don’t seem to know how to manage them a bit. There—you’re caught again!” as Cynthia sprang recklessly from the top of the wall, to the accompaniment of a sharp sound of rending cloth.
“I don’t care!” Sin was bent on braving the matter out, and, to her friends’ horror, she calmly tore off a long strip of blue serge and threw it away. “Nonsense; I never mend. Daddy’ll give me a new skirt out of the store any time I ask him. I hate clothes, and I hate sewing. I’m sure I don’t know why I was born a girl.”
“What shall you wear to the dance?” asked Doris of Stella, as they strolled lovingly side by side. Cynthia, her friends thought, was in a mood that would best be ignored.
“My dotted swiss, I suppose; do you think it will do?”
“Mother is making me a new silk muslin—pale blue; and I’ve got a sash to match and new slippers. It’s two inches longer than my last.” Doris’ voice was full of innocent satisfaction. “You look perfectly stunning in white, Stella,” she added, generously. “And you’re the best dancer of anybody in our set. Isn’t she, Sin?”
Mrs. Waring had insisted upon giving Stella two terms of dancing lessons, with the others, much to her sister’s disgust; and here the native grace of the Indian girl stood her in good stead. It must be admitted that, if she did not particularly care for boys, she did love dancing; it was almost like flying, she thought.
“Um, h’m,” assented Sin, who was born without a sense of rhythm, and never seemed to know what to do with her arms and legs. “I don’t see what either of you want to dance for, though; I hate it, myself. Catch me going to their old party! Give me a warm corner and an interesting story, when it’s too dark to go out. Scotty! Come here at once—here, sir!”
But, as usual, the obstreperous Sir Walter declined to budge, and his mistress found it necessary to follow up and forcibly detach him from a promising burrow.
“What a tom-boy she is! I don’t believe Sin will _ever_ grow up,” Doris lamented. “Are you looking for anything in particular to-day, Jibby, dear?”
“Trailing arbutus for Miss Sophia. I believe she’d rather have it than anything; and you know that little warm nook in the pines, south of our House in the Woods? It _ought_ to be out, just there,” answered Yellow Star, eagerly, looking as if she would coax the pale buds open with the warm shining of her dusky face.