“Not till you tell me the trouble, dear,” and Mrs. Rawlins sat down beside the disturbed guest. “What is it, Grace?”
“It’s my fault, Mrs. Rawlins,” Dolly spoke up. “I was trying to make the girls do something they don’t want to. And I had no business to do it.” Dolly was always just, even against herself.
“But what is it? Tell me, Ethel.”
“Why, Mother, Dolly wants to ask Bernice Forbes to our party, and we don’t want to, ’cause she’d spoil the whole thing.”
“Why?” and Mrs. Rawlins smiled. “Is Bernice such a spoilsport as all that?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Do you think so, Dolly?”
“Well, you see, Mrs. Rawlins, she isn’t awfully nice, but I’m sorry for her; and I thought if we invited her to things, and made her like us, she’d be nicer, and we’d like her.”
“Is this the only reason, Dolly?” and Mrs. Rawlins looked quizzically at her.
Immediately it came into Dolly’s mind how Dotty had said everybody would attribute Dolly’s interest in Bernice to the fact that she was the daughter of the richest man in town, and really an heiress in her own right. Dolly blushed uncomfortably, but she looked straight at her questioner, and replied, “Yes, Mrs. Rawlins, it’s only because I’m sorry for Bernice, and,” she hesitated, and then added, honestly, “and a little, because everybody is so down on her, and I don’t think it’s fair!”