“I couldn’t, Dolly, I’m too full of my own. As for that child’s talk—but half of it has sense.”
“So I thought, too, listening to her. But half did have sense and that is—Who do you think gave me my beautiful toboggan things?”
“Why, your Aunt Betty, I suppose, since she does everything else for you,” answered Winifred promptly. “Anyhow, don’t waste time on guesses—Tell!”
Then she glanced up into Gwendolyn’s face and saw how happy it was, and hastily added:
“No, you needn’t tell, after all, I know. It was Gwen, here, the big-hearted dear old thing! She’s the only girl at Oak Knowe who’s rich enough and generous enough to do such a splendid thing.”
“Good for you, Win, you guessed right at once!” answered Dolly trying to clap her hands but unable to loosen them from her comrades’ clasp. “Now for yours!”
“Wait till we get to the ‘audience chamber’! Come on.”
But even yet they were hindered. In the distance, down at the end of the hall, Dorothy caught sight of Mr. Gilpin, evidently just departing from the house. A more dejected figure could scarcely be imagined, nor a more ludicrous one, as he limped toward the entrance, hands on hips and himself bent forward forlornly. Below his rough top-coat which he had discarded on his arrival, hung the tatters of his smock that had been worn to ribbons by his roll down the slide.
Nobody knew what had become of his own old beaver hat, but a light colored derby, which the chef had loaned him, sat rakishly over one ear, in size too small for the whole top of his bald head.