“I think you have, dear—once or twice,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, demurely.
“Yes. I don’t mind letting you know, Emily, that I have missed him a good deal. Why, I had his photograph—the one I pretended to have lost, so I needn’t send it back—out when you knocked at my door to-day. You couldn’t have helped seeing me thrust it under Clover’s cushion, if you hadn’t thought something was wrong with your boot heel, and stooped down to see.”
“You don’t say so. Well, all I’ve got to say is, I wish I might see Frances’ face at the wedding!”
“You shall, dear. I’ll ask her to be bridesmaid, and you, as maid of honor, can have a good chance to watch her. You have been such a faithful friend to both Jack and myself that you deserve at least that much satisfaction.”
“Look here, Emily and Dorothy, I am afraid you are not attending strictly to the discussion,” said the president. “The topic is— Frances, what on earth has made you so late?”
“It was all an accident,” said the brown-eyed blonde; “I stopped for you, Dorothy, on my way to the club. The maid said you had gone already, and I was just coming away when I noticed that your little dog—what is his name? Rover? Ah, Clover! I knew it was something like that—was chewing something at the back of the hall! I went to see what it was, and—”
“Oh, my goodness gracious! Not my new sixteen-button gloves,” wailed the blue-eyed girl. “I’ll give that dog away to-morrow!”
“No, dear, not your gloves. It was a photograph. Just as I was trying to get the pieces away from him, Ja—I mean Mr. Bittersweet—came up the steps with a huge bunch of violets. He must have seen me standing in the hall; you know the door was open.”
“Yes, dear,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “that checked gown of yours speaks for itself!”
“I—ah, where was I? Oh—he succeeded in getting the fragments away and—really, it was too funny! It turned out to be a photograph of himself! I told him that I was almost sure that you didn’t give it to the dog purposely, Dorothy; but I am afraid I didn’t quite convince him.”