"Ah!" He nodded encouragingly.
"Betty is going to a party."
"And she has been teasing her mother for some finery?"
"She hasn't any pretty gown. I thought this all up myself, Uncle Win. Miss Arabella has such quantities of pretty clothes, and they are being saved up for me. If she was here I should ask her, but I couldn't get it, you know, by Thursday."
She gave a soft laugh at the impossibility, as if it was quite ridiculous.
"And you want it for her?"
"She's so good to me, Uncle Win. For although I know some things quite well, there are others in which I am very stupid. A little girl in school said yesterday that I was 'dreadful dumb, dumber than a goose.' Aunt Elizabeth said a goose was so dumb that if it came in the garden through a hole in the fence it never could find it again to get out."
"That is about the truth," laughed Uncle Win.
"I couldn't get along in arithmetic if it wasn't for Betty. She's so kind and tells me over and over again. And I can't do anything for Aunt Elizabeth, because I don't know how, and it takes most of my time to study. But if I could give Betty a gown—Miss Arabella went to so many parties when she was young. If I was there I know she would consent to give Betty one gown."
Uncle Winthrop thought of a trunk full of pretty gowns that had been lying away many a long year. He couldn't offer any of those to Betty. And that wouldn't be a gift from Doris.