“What will you do for me if I consent?”
“I’ll dance with that little foolish Suzanne Mills, or any one else you may select.”
“All right, but Ellen is such a Priss.”
“She is not at all. You don’t know her; she can be as jolly as the next, and stars! how she can sing.”
“Oh, very well, go along and get your little red-headed missy, only don’t expect me to fall on her neck.”
“You’ll have to be decently polite; that’s all I ask. I’ll see that she has a good time, so I should worry.”
So that is how Ellen happened to go to the dance, and, to the chagrin of her hostess, she had all the attention she could desire, and did not in the least miss the blandishments which Florence bestowed upon some of her guests, notably Suzanne Mills, who was a flapper of flappers, and as brainless a little somebody as one could meet, but she glittered in shining raiment, and was bestrung with gauds, so she could not help attracting attention. “Her people are awful rich,—that’s a real pearl necklace she’s got on,” Ellen heard Florence remark; and, thinking of Mabel Wickham, who also was “awful rich” but who dressed simply and made no display of jewelry, Ellen smiled. However, the blood rushed to her face when Suzanne asked, “Who is the red-headed girl that your brother Frank is so devoted to?”
“Oh, that’s a sort of a little ‘orphant Annie,’ taken up by one of her relatives who lives here. She is poor as poverty, and I’d never have invited her if Frank hadn’t insisted upon it.”
“She doesn’t look poor,” returned Suzanne. “That’s a handsome dress she has on, and those look like real rock-crystal beads she wears.”
“Probably some rich friend gave them to her; her cousin couldn’t afford either dress or beads, unless Ellen badgered her till she was obliged to give them to her to keep peace. It’s pretty hard on Miss Rindy to have to support a girl who is old enough to make her own living.”