"You, indeed!" replied Katy, shaking her head.
"Didn't I see Berry Searles throw a bunch of syringa into your window only this morning?"
"Dear me! did he?
I shall have to speak to Mary again.
It's quite shocking to have her go on so.
But really and truly do let us have a Society.
It would be so jolly.
We could meet on Saturday afternoons, and write pieces and have signals and a secret, as Sylvia's Society did when she was at school.
Get one up, Katy,— that's a dear."
"But," said Katy, taken aback by having her random idea so suddenly adopted, "if I did get one up, it would be in real earnest, and it would be a society against flirting.
And you know you can't help it, Rosy."
"Yes, I can.
You are doing me great injustice.
I don't behave like those girls in Attic Row.
I never did.
I just bow to Berry and the rest whom I really know,—never to anybody else.
And you must see, Katherine darling, that it would be the height of ingratitude if I didn't bow to the boys who made mud pies for me when I was little, and lent me their marbles, and did all sorts of kind things.
Now wouldn't it?"—coaxingly.
"Per—haps," admitted Katy, with a smile.
"But you're such a witch!"
"I'm not,—indeed I'm not.
I'll be a pillar of society if only you'll provide a Society for me to be a pillar of.
Now, Katy, do—ah, do, do!"
When Rose was in a coaxing mood, few people could resist her.
Katy yielded, and between jest and earnest the matter was settled.
Katy was to head the plan and invite the members.
"Only a few at first," suggested Rose.
"When it is proved to be a success, and everybody wants to join, we can let in two or three more as a great favor.
What shall the name be?
We'll keep it a secret, whatever it is.
There's no fun in a society without a secret."
What should the name be?
Rose invented half a dozen, each more absurd than the last.
"The Anti-Jane Society" would sound well, she insisted.
Or, no!—the
"Put-him-down-Club" was better yet!
Finally they settled upon
"The Society for the Suppression of Unladylike Conduct."
"Only we'll never use the whole name," said Rose:
"We'll say, 'The S. S .U. C.'
That sounds brisk and snappy, and will drive the whole school wild with curiosity.
What larks!
How I long to begin!"
The next Saturday was fixed upon for the first meeting.
During the week Katy proposed the plan to the elect few, all of whom accepted enthusiastically.
Lilly Page was the only person who declined.
She said it would be stupid; that for her part she didn't set up to be "proper" or better than she was, and that in any case she shouldn't wish to be mixed up in a Society of which "Miss Agnew" was a member.
The girls did not break their hearts over this refusal.
They had felt obliged to ask her for relationship's sake, but everybody was a little relieved that she did not wish to join.
No. 6 looked very full indeed that Saturday afternoon when the S. S. U. C. came together for the first time.