“If you suspect that,” she said, “it’s just because you’re doing the same thing yourself! Otherwise you never would have thought of it. Patty Fairfield, you stayed home to-day so that I might get ahead of you!”
The two girls read confession in each other’s eyes, and then they dropped into two chairs and laughed and laughed.
Grandma Elliott, in the next room, heard the shrieks of hilarity, and concluded that some girlish secret was the reason of Patty’s unusual absence from school.
“The idea!” exclaimed Lorraine, as the beauty of Patty’s sacrifice dawned upon her; “how could you do such a thing?”
“The idea!” cried Patty, touched by her sudden realisation of Lorraine’s loyalty to herself, “how could you do such a thing?”
CHAPTER XX
TWO CONFIDENTIAL INTERVIEWS
When the two girls realised that they had done identically the same thing, and each had chosen precisely the same way to advance the other’s interests, it will be hard to say which was more pleased. Patty was deeply touched at this proof of Lorraine’s devotion, for she had no idea the girl was so fond of her, and, too, she had not thought Lorraine capable of this particular way of showing affection.
Lorraine, on the other hand, was almost overcome at the thought of the merry, popular Patty caring enough for her to want her to win the prize.
The result was that a strong and real friendship was cemented between the two girls, and Lorraine’s new realisation of what a friendship with Patty stood for went far toward helping her to acquire an habitual good-humour. Indeed, so glad and gay did Lorraine become over the whole affair, that Patty privately concluded she was quite merry enough for a Grig, and determined to have her made a member of the club as soon as possible.
Of course the girls never told of this episode, for each hesitated to exploit her own share in the matter, and the story could not be told by halves.