"That's what I call nasty-nice. Next time you'll be wiping your nose on that same thing and I'd rather have the dust on my shoes than in my nostrils. But no matter. I've so many things to tell you I don't know where to begin!"
"Don't you? Well, then, you're such a terrible talker when you get started, s'pose we have our dinner first. I'm terrible hungry."
"Hungry, Mabel Bruce? Already? Didn't you have your breakfast?"
"Course, I did. But a girl can't eat once and make it last all day, can she?"
"I reckon you can't. You're the greatest eater I ever did see. All the girls say so. That's why you're always put on the refreshment committee at our picnics. Even Miss Georgia says: 'If you want to be sure of enough provision make Mabel chairman.' A chairman is the boss of any particular thing, if you don't know:" instructed this extremely frank hostess.
"Oh! course I know. You just said I was one and folks most gen'ally know what they are themselves, I guess," answered the plumber's daughter, without resentment. What anybody said didn't matter to phlegmatic Mabel so long as their doing agreed with her desires. She was fond of Dorothy C. Oh! yes, she was sincerely fond as well as proud! The Chesters were bringing up their daughter very nicely, her mother declared, and that Dorothy had the prettiest manners of all the girls who came to their house. Mabel had her own opinion of those manners, of which she had just had a specimen, but she never contradicted her mother and not often her playmates. As a rule she was too lazy, and was only moved to dispute a statement when it was really beyond belief—like that of her chum's having suddenly become an "heiress." Heiresses were rich. Mabel wasn't very wise but she knew that, and witness Dorothy's ragged shoes. Heiress? Huh! It was more sensible to return to the subject of dinner, for the visitor had sampled Mrs. Chester's cooking before now and knew it to be excellent. So she rose and started for the kitchen, and with an exclamation of regret the hostess followed the guest, though cautioning her:
"If we eat our lunch now, at a little after eleven o'clock, you mustn't expect another dinner at one. My mother didn't say I could have two meals, so you better eat dreadful slow and make it last."
"All right. I will. Maybe, too, I'll go home by our own dinner time. Sundays, that isn't till after two o'clock, 'cause my mother goes to church and has to cook it afterward. Sunday is the only day my father is home to dinner, so he wants a big one and mother gets it for him. Your father's home Sundays, too, isn't he?"
"He—he was—He used——" began Dorothy, then with a sudden burst of tears turned away and hid her face in her hands.
Warm-hearted, if always-hungry, Mabel instantly threw her arms about her friend's waist and tried to comfort her with loving kisses and the assurance: