"I do not learn it," laughed Rosalie. "I do not have to. It was born in me. I sort of breathe it. Tra, la, la, lalala. I can do a toe dance, Doris. I will teach you. Does father go to the Sessions to-night? Then we will have a lesson while he is gone. Oh, there come--"
"Rosalie, I want to ask you-- Don't you think we ought to get along without Miss Carlton now? She is so sort of prim, and bossy--and it costs eighteen dollars a month--and if we do you can have nicer clothes, you know."
"Wouldn't be proper," said Rosalie lightly. "Beautiful girls must be properly guarded. And besides, I would have to do more work, and I don't like to work."
"Father is proper enough for anybody," said Doris with spirit. "And I do all of the work anyhow."
"Could I have a regular evening dress, V in the back and no sleeves?" demanded Rosalie with glittering eyes. "Isn't it funny, the less there is to a dress, the more there is to the cost? All the girls have evening dresses, and I have the nicest shoulders in the whole gym. But Miss Carlton would never go. You couldn't fire her off."
"Who is the General?" demanded Doris loftily. "If I say go, she goes in a hurry."
"You bad General, she is gone already, isn't she?"
"Are you sure father won't go trotting after her, and marry her on the sly?"
"Well, I am sure I do not care. I think I am rather glad. Whenever I got my dates mixed, and had two or three callers at once, she was always shocked. She said the boys didn't act that way when she was a girl. I rather suppose they didn't. But what Miss Carlton was and what I am are two remotely different things. Why, you would hardly believe we are both feminine, would you?"
"No," said Doris honestly. "One can't think of any two things more different. You are such a--such--"
"Problem," laughed Rosalie. "Don't I know it? Well, you can not solve me, Doris, so don't try. But I am just like those horrible trigonometry nightmares--you can't figure them out to save your life, but they are quite perfectly all right in spite of you."
Doris turned to give her sister a warm adoring look. "I know that," she said happily. "Only, however in the world you manage to say such wonderful things with your eyes, Rosalie--I've tried and tried--alone, of course," she added hastily. "I wouldn't before people for anything. But I can't take people's breath away as you do."