The Old Girl said she was awfully sorry—that she had promised another, naming the rich man’s son. I said, in substance—though really not sore at the OG, I think I was not in a frame of mind to phrase it just so—”Let’s see where we stand. The way things are shaped up now, I’m out—that is, barred from the Silver Stocking crowd by the rules of my own helpful making.”
She suggested that I go back to the girl I have designated as My Best Girl—said, “I KNOW you can, if you will just spunk up a little.” I had never “spunked” much with the OG.
“But,” I said, “if I should succeed in dating her, someone else would be out, and that someone is your old beau. Likely timber maybe. Then, in case your date does not choose to repeat, you might still have a chance to get back with the old crowd.”
She laughed — the OG was feeling pretty good, just then—and said, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Now she giggled, “But, you know, I could always be a hanger-on, maybe even go with you and your girl—just in case.” A boy was permitted to take more than one girl—even a flock of them if he were unlucky enough.
Now the atmosphere around the OG’s home had changed, with exultant spirits taking a nose-dive. That letter was for the purpose of calling off a date. She was really too nice a girl to be buffed around like that — but please note that I did not hold with any such buffings. She had forfeited her chance to go with the crowd to the picnic. Now, more than ever, she wanted to go. She first took her troubles to her bosom friend, Bessie Campfield, wife of Judge Elwin Campfield. She wanted to know how could she, with propriety, get word to me that after all she would be free to go with me to the picnic. Bessie had spent some anxious moments trying to round up a courier to apprise me of that letter. She said to the OG, “I don’t know about that now. I could have told you about that fellow’s egotistical designs.”
The Old Girl lived with her aged parents, and when they would go away for the night, as they often did to visit another daughter in the country, she would have a young neighbor girl—not too young, but much younger than she-stay the night with her. The old folks were away now, and the young girl had been called in for the night.