You seldom stop to think of etiquette why did you now??
“I didn’t like to do it till I had you are so particular I thought you’d
say ‘no,’ but I couldn’t tell him so,” stammered Kitty, feeling that
she had better have settled the matter herself, for Rose was very
particular and had especial reason to dislike this person because he
was not only a dissipated young reprobate himself but seemed
possessed of Satan to lead others astray likewise.
“I don’t wish to be rude, dear, but I really must decline, for I cannot
know such people, even though I meet them here,” said Rose,
remembering Charlie’s revelations on New Year’s night and
hardening her heart against the man who had been his undoing on
that as well as on other occasions, she had reason to believe.
“I couldn’t help it! Old Mr. Randal and Papa are friends, and
though I spoke of it, brother Alf wouldn’t hear of passing that bad
boy over,” explained Kitty eagerly.
“Yet Alf forbade you driving or skating with him, for he knows
better than we how unfit he is to come among us.?
“I’d drop him tomorrow if I could, but I must be civil in my own
house. His mother brought him, and he won’t dare to behave here
as he does at their bachelor parties.?
“She ought not to have brought him till he had shown some desire
to mend his ways. It is none of my business, I know, but I do wish
people wouldn’t be so inconsistent, letting boys go to destruction
and then expecting us girls to receive them like decent people.”
Rose spoke in an energetic whisper, but Annabel heard her and
exclaimed, as she turned round with a powder puff in her hand:
“My goodness, Rose! What is all that about going to destruction??
“She is being strong-minded, and I don’t very much blame her in
this case. But it leaves me in a dreadful scrape,” said Kitty,
supporting her spirits with a sniff of aromatic vinegar.
“I appeal to you, since you heard me, and there’s no one here but
ourselves do you consider young Randal a nice person to know?”
And Rose turned to Annabel and Emma with an anxious eye, for
she did not find it easy to abide by her principles when so doing
annoyed friends.
“No, indeed, he’s perfectly horrid! Papa says he and Gorham are
the wildest young men he knows, and enough to spoil the whole
set. I’m so glad I’ve got no brothers,” responded Annabel, placidly
powdering her pink arms, quite undeterred by the memory of
sundry white streaks left on sundry coat sleeves.
“I think that sort of scrupulousness is very ill-bred, if you’ll excuse
my saying so, Rose. We are not supposed to know anything about
fastness, and wildness, and so on, but to treat every man alike and
not be fussy and prudish,” said Emma, settling her many-colored
streamers with the superior air of a woman of the world, aged
twenty.
“Ah! But we do know, and if our silence and civility have no
effect, we ought to try something else and not encourage
wickedness of any kind. We needn’t scold and preach, but we can
refuse to know such people and that will do some good, for they
don’t like to be shunned and shut out from respectable society.
Uncle Alec told me not to know that man, and I won’t.” Rose
spoke with unusual warmth, forgetting that she could not tell the
real reason for her strong prejudice against “that man.?
“Well, I know him. I think him very jolly, and I’m engaged to
dance the German with him after supper. He leads quite as well as
your cousin Charlie and is quite as fascinating, some people
think,” returned Emma, tossing her head disdainfully, for Prince
Charming did not worship at her shrine and it piqued her vanity.
In spite of her quandary, Rose could not help smiling as she
recalled Mac’s comparison, for Emma turned so red with spiteful
chagrin, she seemed to have added strawberry ice to the other
varieties composing the Harlequin.
“Each must judge for herself. I shall follow Aunt Jessie’s advice