at least I think it would be reasonable to be."

Flossy spoke out of the fullness of a troubled heart:

"I don't understand it at all. I never wanted to, either, until just
to-night; but now I want to feel as those people did when they sang that
hymn."

Marion came quickly up from the other side.

"Flossy," she said, with sudden sharpness, "come over here and watch the
track of the boat through the water." And as Flossy mechanically obeyed,
she added: "What a foolish, heedless little mouse you are! I wonder that
your mother let you go from her sight. Don't you know that you mustn't
get up conversations with strange young men in that fashion?"

Flossy had not thought of it at all: but now she said a little drearily,
as if the subject did not interest her:

"But I have often held conversations with strange young men at the
dancing-hall, you know, and danced with them, too, when _everything_ I
knew about them was their names, and generally I forgot that."

Marion gave a light laugh.

"That is different," she said, letting her lip curl in the darkness
over the folly of her own words. "What its proper at a dance in very
improper coming home from prayer-meeting, don't you see?"

"What do you think!" she said the minute they were in their rooms.