"She's just a little girl," complained Alicia. "Fourteen years old! I don't want to go to an infant class!"
"All right," put in Bernice, "you can stay home, then. I'm delighted to go. To think of telling the girls at home that we went to Bayne Coriell's daughter's party! My, won't they think we're grand!"
"That's so," agreed Alicia. "Not everybody could get such an invitation. We couldn't, only that he's Uncle Jeff's friend. But I can tell you, girls, if I hadn't got up this whole scheme we wouldn't have been asked there. You can thank me for it."
"Dolly, too," said Dotty. "If she hadn't asked Mrs. Berry, he wouldn't have come at all."
"Yes, he would; why wouldn't he?"
"Oh, pshaw! It was all made up by Uncle Jeff. You could see that. Mrs.
Berry told him, and he let us go ahead, just to have a joke on us. Mr.
Brown came mostly to see Mr. Forbes,—not us."
"You're right, you little smarty-cat," and Alicia smiled at the astute Dotty. "And I do believe Uncle Jeff meant to give us a lesson about writing to actors. I thought it was queer he took it so easily,—and Mrs. Berry too. They played right into our hands. They wouldn't have done that if the actor person had been a stranger."
"Of course they wouldn't," and Dotty wagged her head. "I felt sure there was some reason why Mrs. Berry said yes to Doll so easily. But I didn't think Coriell Bayne, or whatever his name is, was old enough to be Uncle Forbes' chum."
"He isn't exactly," said Dolly; "that is, he said his father and Mr.
Forbes were friends. I suppose the son carried on the friendship."
"He looks as old as my father,—off the stage," said Bernice; "but on it, he might be my father's son!"