“I must go for Celia,” thought Dolly, as she looked the group over, and found most of them acting in accordance with her orders.
So finding opportunity, she said to Celia, “Bernice makes a good hostess, doesn’t she?”
“Good nothing!” exclaimed Celia, in a whisper. “What’s the matter with everybody to rave over her, all of a sudden?”
“Well, I think she’s worth raving over,” Dolly defended. “Don’t you?”
“ ’Deed I don’t! And I, for one, won’t toady to her just ’cause she’s rich and lives in a big house—”
“Oh, Celia,” and Dolly laughed outright; “how ridiculous! Do you s’pose, for a minute, that Bert and Bob are nice to Bernice for any such reasons? You know better!”
“I don’t know as they are,—but you and Dotty Rose are.”
“No, we’re not. I like Bernice for far other reasons than that. And you’d better, too, unless you want to be in the minority.”
And with this, Dolly turned on her heel and left the astonished Celia with something to think about.