"I am going after all," she told them girlishly. "My uncle has sent me so pretty goods for a frock and your good kind mother will help me to make it. Am I not lucky?"
The girls looked at each other and Nan giggled outright, for Mary Lee's face wore such an amazed expression. It was all very well not to let your right hand know what your left one was doing but Mary Lee was not sure that she liked Mr. Arnaldo Garcia to have the credit of her sacrifice. If the giver had simply remained an indefinite, intangible somebody it would have been all right, but to have her money and Nan's placed in Señor Garcia's pocketbook, so to speak, was a little too much. Still she could say nothing and was really happy over the delight of her beloved Miss Dolores.
"And it comes something so mysterious," said the señorita. "I think it is your aunt, your mother, who send, and I am in a rage, fury, but your so sensible aunt shows me my error and now I am content."
"She would have been in just as much of a rage and fury if she had known we sent it," said Nan as the señorita left them. "It is kind of hard on us, Mary Lee, to have Señor Garcia spending our Christmas money, but I reckon we'll have to grin and bear it, for if she had an inkling of the truth there would be no white crêpe gown made up for that tea, I can promise you. Mother will tell us that it was a good discipline for our characters."
And so she did, for though she laughed at Mary Lee's lugubrious expression when she told of how her Christmas money had been spent, she said: "Well, my dear, it is your own doing. You wanted it a secret and a secret it must be. I'll never tell, you may be sure, and after all, I think it is well for us to perform an act merely for the good that it does and not for any recognition we may get for it. That is true generosity, simon-pure variety. Never mind if Mr. Garcia did seem to give the gown you will enjoy the señorita's pleasure in it, and she will enjoy it twice as much, while I shall take delight in helping her to make it up, a double delight, since I know my darling girls gave it."
"We meant not to tell you till after the tea," said Nan, "but we just couldn't keep it, for we were so taken aback when we found out that Señor Garcia had been spending our pocket money."
Mrs. Corner laughed. "I am glad you didn't wait to tell me. It is a joke on you as well as on the señorita, yet it is a mighty good kind of joke."
A pretty gown it turned out to be, and the señorita never looked lovelier than when adorned for the tea. The soft white, clinging folds heightened her slender figure and gave it a grace which her ordinary plain black frocks did not reveal. Around her round white throat she wore the topaz necklace and in her bright hair were yellow blossoms.
"You just look like a creen," said Jean admiringly.
"I think she looks more like an angel," remarked Jack.