"My aunt!" sighed Bobby inelegantly, shaking her head. "You believe in starting young, don't you? Why, I'm fourteen, and I've never given a thought to a hope-chest."
Here Esther, the early riser of the family, created a diversion by coming in fully dressed and announcing that Mammy Lou was willing to teach as many girls as cared to come after breakfast how to make beaten biscuit.
"Take Libbie," giggled Bobby, whose sense of humor was easily tickled. "She's collecting stuff for her hope chest and I should think biscuit recipes would be just the thing. Do you want to learn to cook, Betty? Esther has a kitchen hobby and rides it almost to death."
"I do not!" retorted Esther indignantly. "Do I, Louise? Mother loved to cook when she was a girl, and she says she likes to see me fussing in the kitchen."
Betty was showing Libbie how to hold her crochet hook, and now she looked up from her pupil.
"Why, I'd love to learn to make those wonderful biscuits Mammy Lou makes," she said slowly, "but I really have to go into Washington to-day. That is, if it will not upset any one's plans? I can easily walk to the trolley line, and I won't be gone longer than a couple of hours."
A trolley line ran about half a mile from the house, and to Betty who had frequently walked ten miles a day while at Bramble Farm, this distance seemed negligible.
"Let me go with you, Betty?" coaxed Bobby. "Carter will take us in the machine. I won't bother you, and if you have personal business to attend to, I'll wait for you in the library or some place. Cooking and making lace drives me wild, and if you leave me at home as likely as not I'll pick a quarrel with some one before the morning is over."
"Worse than that, she'll insist on singing while I'm trying to practice," said Louise. "I'm three or four days behind with my violin, and a rainy morning is a grand time to catch up. Do take her with you, Betty."
"Why, goodness, she will be taking me," insisted Betty. "Of course you know I'll love to have you, Bobby. As a matter of fact, I wanted to ask you to go with me because it is a strange place and your father said not to go alone. Only I didn't want to disturb any plans you might have made for to-day. I'll tell you about it on the way," she added noting the look of growing curiosity on Bobby's face.