They sat in the cool drawing-room a little while after luncheon, until the Athertons arrived with their rackets; and then they all went down to the tennis lawn. The Atherton's were nice-looking girls, and Bessie was rather taken with them, but she was somewhat surprised when they opened their lips. She was walking across the grass with Florence, the tallest and prettiest of the sisters, and, indeed, she was rather a sweet-looking girl. "Is it not a lovely day?" observed Bessie. "Awfully jolly," replied Miss Florence, in a sharp, clipping voice; and the next minute Bessie heard her call one of her sisters a duffer for missing the ball. "What would mother say?" thought Bessie. She was not much used to the typical girl of the period; after all, she was an old-fashioned little person. The Athertons were really nice girls, although they talked slang like their brothers, and conformed to all the foolish fashions of the day, disguising their honest, womanly hearts under blunt, flippant manners. "What a pity," said Bessie to herself, when she came to know them better. They were good-natured, clever girls, very fond of each other, and devoted to their mother and brothers. Reggie's examination--exam., Florence called it--for Sandhurst; Harold's new coach, and Bertie's score at cricket, were the theme of their conversation. "I am afraid Harold won't pass," observed Sabina sadly. "His last coach was such a muff, but the man he has got now seems a good old sort. Harold can get on with him comfortably." "Well, what do you think of the girls?" asked Edna, when she and Bessie were left alone at the close of the afternoon. "I think they are very nice, Florence especially, but it is such a pity that they talk slang; it seems to spoil them, somehow." "I agree with you that it is bad style, but, you see, they have learned it from their brothers." Bad style, that was all. Bessie's gentle-looking mouth closed firmly with the expression it always wore when politeness forbade her to air her true opinions, but in her own heart she was saying: "Bad style. That is how worldly minded people talk. That is how they palliate these sins against good taste and propriety. I like these girls; they are genuine, somehow; but I suppose our bringing up has made us old-fashioned, for I seemed to shrink inwardly every time they opened their lips. Surely it must be wrong to lose all feminine refinement in one's language. There were no young men here, happily, to hear them; but if there had been, they would have expressed themselves in the same manner. That is what I cannot understand, now girls can lay aside their dignity and borrow masculine fashions. What a little lady Christine would have seemed beside them! Chrissy has such pretty manners."