Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/349

Rh Bell," cried Susan. "Never! and you 'll have to make up your mind to that. I hate it, the sneaking, time-serving, calculating thing. It is next door to lying and stealing. I m going always to say what I think, do what I like, have what friends I please, without the slightest reference to what the world says; whether they call it strange or not, proper or not, right or not, it 's nothing to me. I don't care a straw for the whole world's opinion, so long as I am sure I am right."

"Then you 'll get into horrible scrapes; that 's all; I can tell you that," said Bell, hotly.

"Why, I 'm never going to do anything improper," retorted Susan; "and how shall I get into horrible scrapes?"

"Oh, millions of ways," replied Bell, despairingly. "When you 're as old as I am, you 'll know the world better. I tell you women can't do that way; and I don't think it 's womanly."

"What is n't womanly?" said Susan, in a pettish tone.

"Why, not caring," said Bell; "I think it 's a woman's place to care very much what people think of her, and to try not to offend anybody's prejudices, and above all things, not to go against custom."

Susan groaned.

"Oh, pshaw, Bell," she said, "what kind of a life would that be? I 'd as soon be a cartridge in cartridge case, numbered and packed. But don't let us quarrel over this. We shall never think alike about it."