Pauline was rather tall and seemed to have an air of authority. Though not exactly pretty, she was striking-looking, with brown eyes and hair and a complexion of rosy tan. She wore a white dress and a red sweater and white stockings with red shoes, and she put her hand through Dolly's arm with a decided air of possession.
"I like you already," she said, "and I'm sure we're going to be chums. Are you rich?"
The question struck Dolly as funny, and she turned to look into Pauline's face. But the brown eyes were serious, and evidently the Clifton girl wished an answer and was prepared to rate her new friend accordingly.
"No," said Dolly, returning the frank gaze; "we're not rich. We live in a small town, and we have about everything we want, but I'm sure we're not what you'd call rich. Are you?"
It would never have occurred to Dolly to ask this question, but it seemed to follow naturally after the other's.
"Oh, yes," Pauline said, "we're awfully rich. We live in New York, and my father has a yacht and lots of motor cars and everything."
"I should think you'd have your own summer home, then, and not come to a hotel."
"We have; two of them. One on Long Island and one up in the mountains. But Father takes freaks. I haven't any mother, and he jumps around wherever he feels like it. So he picked this place for August and here we are. There's only me and Carroll, that's my brother. He's that boy on ahead, with his cap on the back of his head."
"Who looks after you; your father?"
"Yes; but he isn't here much. We have a kind of a nurse-governess; that is, she used to be our nurse when we were little and she has always stayed with us. She's a funny old thing, Liza her name is, but she can manage us better than anybody else. Father tried a French governess for me and a German Fraülein, and Carroll has a different tutor about every month, but Liza just stays on through it all. I know all about you from the Brown boys. Aren't they ducks! They told us about you before you came, and about Dotty Rose. Isn't she pretty? You're awfully pretty, too, and you two look lovely together."