Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/64

48 me, and I was going to have a good time, it's all spoilt by Fan's nonsense. Mrs. Shaw don't like it, nor grandma either, I dare say. There'll be a fuss if I go, and Fan will plague me; so, I'll give it up, and let Tom think I'm afraid. Oh, dear! I never did see such ridiculous people."

Polly shut her door hard, and felt ready to cry with vexation, that her pleasure should be spoilt by such a silly idea; for, of all the silly freaks of this fast age, that of little people playing at love is about the silliest. Polly had been taught that it was a very serious and sacred thing; and, according to her notions, it was far more improper to flirt with one boy than to coast with a dozen. She had been much amazed, only the day before, to hear Maud say to her mother, "Mamma, must I have a beau? The girls all do, and say I ought to have Fweddy Lovell; but I don't like him as well as Hawry Fiske."

"Oh, yes; I'd have a little sweetheart, dear, it's so cunning," answered Mrs. Shaw. And Maud announced soon after that she was engaged to "Fweddy, 'cause Hawry slapped her" when she proposed the match.

Polly laughed with the rest at the time; but when she thought of it afterward, and wondered what her own mother would have said, if little Kitty had put such a question, she didn't find it cunning or funny, but ridiculous and unnatural. She felt so now about herself; and when her first petulance was over, resolved to give up coasting and everything else, rather than have any nonsense with Tom, who, thanks to his neglected education, was as ignorant as herself of the