“Yes, I see that. When does your father expect to go?”
“In about a month.”
“That’ll be the middle of December. S’pose I get Father to postpone the date till, say, after Christmas. The first of the year they often make changes. That’ll give you nearly two months, and if things are working all right by then, I can easily make Father let you stay here. Why, if I told him I wanted you here in Berwick, he’d make any arrangements to keep you here.”
“Then do it now!” and Dolly’s eyes danced at this easy settlement of the whole matter.
“Nixy! You haven’t done a thing yet! I don’t want to be mean about this, but—well, you know what I do want and it’s up to you.”
“All right, Bernice. Will you ask your father, to-night, to put off Dad’s transfer till after the holidays?”
“Yes, I will, and he’ll do it. Now, what are you going to do first?”
“First of all, I’m going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle!” Dolly’s eyes were dancing now. Her aim was accomplished, at least, in part, and her well thought out campaign was about to be begun.
“You see, Bernice, all I can do will not count at all unless you do something to help along. And what you’ve got to do, is to change your way with ’em. Now, wait a minute. You’re pretty and bright and you have lovely clothes and all that, but you go around with a chip on your shoulder! Yes, you do, and it upsets your whole apple-cart! Now, you’ve just simply got to be sunny and sweet and if you think you see little slights or mean things, swallow them and keep on smiling. I know that sounds hard, even sounds silly, but that’s all there is to it. You’ve got to break down that sort of barrier you’ve built up around you. Do you know what they say about you? They say you’re stuck-up. That’s an awful thing in our crowd. We don’t like stuck-up people. You’re so rich, you see, so much richer than any of the rest of us, that we feel sort of shy of you, unless you come down to our level. I mean our level as to grandeur and style and those things. We don’t care if you have silk dresses when we have gingham, if you don’t rub it in. Oh, don’t you see what I mean?”
“I don’t know as I do, Dolly,” and Bernice looked very serious. “But I begin to, and I do believe I can learn. But it’s so hard when everybody turns the cold shoulder, and nobody wants to speak to me.”