“I couldn’t do that,” said Cora, blushing until her freckles disappeared. “Your people would know they were yours. I’d feel ashamed.”
“Yes, that wouldn’t do,” agreed Jean.
“I know what to do,” said Henrietta, who had arrived and was perched on the substantial newel post. “We’ll all lend you things. You can take that new white blouse of mine—it will have to shrink before I can wear it.”
“I’ll lend you my pleated skirt,” said Helen Miller, “you have it most of the time, anyway.”
“I have a petticoat that would go with it,” said Dorothy.
“Please—please take my new umbrella,” pleaded little Jane Pool, earnestly. “I want to lend you something and that’s the only thing I have that’s big enough.”
“You’re a bunch of darlings,” said Cora, hugging them all by turns, “and I’ll be glad to borrow your things.”
“Of course it’s too late to be of any use for vacation,” said Jean, “but I have an idea. Why don’t you ask Doctor Rhodes to write to your people and tell them the horrible truth about your inches. Have Mrs. Henry Rhodes measure you. Figures, you know, never—well, exaggerate. They may believe Doctor Rhodes.”
“Angel child!” cried Cora, “I’ll do just that. You’ve found the answer.”
Perhaps Jean had, for Doctor Rhodes, both amused and impressed by Cora’s remarkable plight, did write to her people and the response was a large box that arrived soon after Cora returned from Maude’s.