“Yes. Mrs. Dixon said we were to join Walter there; and we can play shuffleboard or roll tenpins or do anything like that if we choose. Isn’t it fine?”
“I should say so. I have always been wild to go into that club-house on the cricket grounds, and I never had a chance before this. I have watched the girls play tennis there and did so wish I belonged to the club.”
“Well, now’s your chance. Come, get ready.” And the two girls hastened up-stairs to prepare for the event.
“I wish I had a new coat,” said Persis; “but it was Lisa’s turn this winter. I don’t generally mind having hand-me-downs, except when I am away from home, and then I like to be spick and span from head to foot. Never mind, I have two dollars’ worth of elegance in the shape of a pair of fine new gloves that grandma gave me just before I came away. And I have a new hat; the Pigeon had to take mine. I believe, after all, I am going to be the shortest of the trio, and will have to wear Mell’s frocks in a year or two. Won’t that be horrid?”
“Who is the Pigeon?” asked Connie, laughing.
“Don’t you know? Mell. We call her that for fun, because she is given to turning in her toes; and we tell her that sometimes she stands on the curb as if she had just alighted there, and that she has a way of looking up and down the street as if she were making up her mind to which roof she would fly next; so we call her ‘the Pigeon.’ Lisa is called ‘Lady Dignity,’ or sometimes ‘Dig,’ for short.”
“And what do they call you?”
“Tommy,” replied Persis, laughing. “You can easily guess why. Come, I hear the carriage. Don’t you like Walter Dixon?”
“I never met him,” confessed Connie. “I have often met Dr. Dixon, and I like him, he is so jolly.”
“Walter is just like him,” Persis informed her; “so you’ll be sure to get along well with him.” And the girls started down-stairs to meet Mrs. Dixon, who was waiting for them in the hall.