Belles on their Toes

make one of them supremely happy? And leave me alone."
    "But I've just known them for a few weeks, and you and I are old buddies."
    "My Buddy," Anne said sarcastically. "You'd better shove off, Buddy, before your mother sees you associating with the lower classes."
    "You mean on the boat?" Morton asked. "Listen, I've been wanting to tell you about that."
    "If you think there's anything to be ashamed of in a large family," Anne told him hotly, "you're a bigger wet smack than I think you are."
    "And that," called Ernestine, who was sitting a few feet away, "would set a world's record."
    "It wasn't your family," Morton insisted, dropping his voice so that only Anne could hear. "It was that loud-mouthed little fugitive from the old folks' home, with the cat on his shoulder."
    "You're talking about the man I love," Anne warned, but the shortage of boys was acute, and she seemed to be weakening. "We're all crazy about Tom, and he's nothing to be ashamed of."
    "I hadn't heard about your father, and I never had met him. And I saw that man. And I thought... and, well, and Mother thought..."
    "I don't believe you'd better tell me what you thought or your mother thought," Anne said. "I don't believe I'd consider it flattering, and I have a strong feeling that Tom wouldn't either."
    "Let's forget it," Morton smiled. "Relax and have a smoke. And let's be friends, eh?"
    He reached for a package of cigarettes, while a bevy of females, who hadn't missed a thing, clutched for their matches. Anne looked quickly around the tops of the sand dunes, to make sure none of her brothers were spying.
    "Okay, Buddy," she grinned. "Light it for me, will you?"
    He put two cigarettes in his mouth, chose among five blazing matches that were being poked into his face, lighted both smokes, and handed one to Anne. She took two long puffs and inhaled deeply.
    "That's the first cigarette I've had since I left Northampton," she said contentedly. "It tastes fine." She took another drag and inhaled again.
    Ernestine, whose mouth had dropped open, watched admiringly and enviously as Anne puffed, expertly knocked off the ashes with her little finger, and finally flicked the butt over a dune.
    "I didn't know you did that," Ernestine whispered, sidling over to Anne. "You go at it as if you've had plenty of experience."
    "What are you talking about?" Anne asked innocently. "Go at what?"
    "You know very well what I mean. Puffing away at that cigarette like a dope fiend. I didn't know you dissipated."
    "There's lots of things you don't know about me. Besides, everybody smokes in college."
    "Can I have one?"
    "You're not in college."
    "Can I just try one?" Ernestine whispered.
    "I should say not. It's going to be bad enough when I tell Mother I smoke, without having to confess anything about ruining your morals."
    "Anybody," Ern asked loudly, "got a ciggie?"
    "Let her have one," said Morton, who had heard most of the whispering. "Here, Kid."
    He tossed her his package, and a box of unused matches.
    "I seem to have left mine at home," Ernestine said.
    She took out a cigarette and tapped one end of it ; on the thumbnail of her left hand, as she had seen Morton do. Then she tapped the other end. She put it a third of the way into the center of her mouth and lighted it.
    "Put that out," Anne said in her ear. "You're making a spectacle of yourself. You're supposed to smoke those things, not eat them."
    No one except Anne was paying any attention.
    Ernestine puffed, without inhaling, and took the cigarette from her mouth.
    "That certainly," she said loudly, spitting out flecks of tobacco that were clinging to her lips and tongue, soothes my jangled nerves. Nothing's worse than when you run out of ciggies."
    "Ciggies," Anne whispered. "My cow!"
    "What makes it do like that?" Ernestine asked her, contemplating the brownish, unraveled end that had been in her mouth. "It's all coming apart."
    "You're supposed to hold it in your lips, not your tonsils," Anne said. "If you're going to smoke, at least wait until I show you how, and stop humiliating me in public."
    Ernestine thought there was merit to that suggestion. She placed the moist fag between her thumb and middle finger, optimistically took sight on the top of the tallest dune, and flicked. The cigarette shredded open and landed six inches from her hand, where she buried it quickly in the sand.
    Later that morning, on the way home from the beach, Anne told Ern she had started smoking about six months before, and had