"Old heathen!" said Florence, glancing back over her shoulder as he disappeared from view.
Mr. Dill was startled from a reverie inspired by the back of Julia's head. "'Heathen'?" he said, in plaintive inquiry.
"I meant Herbert," Florence informed him. "Cousin Herbert Atwater. He was following us, walking Dutch."
"'Cousin Herbert Atwater'?" said Noble dreamily. "'Dutch'?"
"He won't any more," said Florence. "He always hass to show off, now his voice is changing." She spoke, and she also walked, with dignity--a rather dashing kind of dignity, which was what Herbert's eccentricity of gait intended to point out injuriously. In fact, never before had Florence been so impressed with herself; never before, indeed, had she been a member of a grown-up non-family party; never before had she gone walking with an actual adult young man for her escort; and she felt that she owed it to her position to appear in as brilliant an aspect as possible. She managed to give herself a rhythmical, switching motion, causing her kneelength skirt to swing from side to side--a pomp that brought her a great deal of satisfaction as she now and then caught the effect by twisting her neck enough to see down behind, over her shoulder.
But her poise was temporarily threatened when the walking-party passed her own house. Her mother happened to be sitting near an open window upstairs, and, after gazing forth with warm interest at Julia and her two outwalkers, Mrs. Atwater's astonished eyes fell upon Florence taking care of the overflow. Florence bowed graciously.
"Florence!" her mother called down from the window: whereupon both Florence and her Aunt Julia were instantly apprehensive, for Mrs. George Atwater's lack of tact was a legend in the family. "Florence! Where on earth are you going?"
"Never mind!" Florence thought best to respond. "Never mind!"
"You'd better come in," Mrs. Atwater called, her voice necessarily louder as the party moved onward.
"Never mind!" Florence called back.
Mrs. Atwater leaned out of the window. "Where are you going? Come back and get your hat. You'll get a sunstroke!"
Florence was able to conceal her indignation, and merely waved a hand in airy dismissal as they passed from Mrs. Atwater's sight, leaving her still shouting.
The daughter smiled negligently and shrugged her shoulders. "She'll get over it!" she said.
"Who?"
"My mother. She was the one makin' all that noise," said Florence. "Sometimes I do what she says: sometimes I don't. It's all accordings to the way I feel." She looked up in her companion's face, and her expression became politely fond as she thought how uncouth he was, for in Florence's eye Noble Dill was truly rare, exquisite, and unfamiliar; and she believed that he was obs, too, whatever that meant. She often thought about him, and no longer ago than yesterday she had told Kitty Silver that she couldn't see "how Aunt Julia could look at anybody else!"