Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/211

Rh "What pleasure you boys can find in such ungentlemanly things, I don't see," said Fanny, who was evidently out of sorts.

"As much a mystery to you as it is to us, how you girls can like to gabble and prink from one week's end to the other," retorted Tom.

There was a pause after this little passage-at-arms, but Fan wanted to be amused, for time hung heavily on her hands, so she asked, in a more amiable tone,

"How's Trix?"

"As sweet as ever," answered Tom, gruffly.

"Did she scold you, as usual?"

"She just did."

"What was the matter?"

"Well, I'll leave it to you if this isn't unreasonable: she won't dance with me herself, yet don't like me to go it with anybody else. I said, I thought, if a fellow took a girl to a party, she ought to dance with him once, at least, especially if they were engaged. She said that was the very reason why she shouldn't do it; so, at the last hop, I let her alone, and had a gay time with Belle, and to-day Trix gave it to me hot and heavy, coming home from church."

"If you go and engage yourself to a girl like that, I don't know what you can expect. Did she wear her Paris hat to-day?" added Fan, with sudden interest in her voice.

"She wore some sort of a blue thing, with a confounded bird of Paradise in it, that kept whisking into my face every time she turned her head."

"Men never know a pretty thing when they see it. That hat is perfectly lovely."