“Just the same. Five dollars.”
“Well, come on. I mustn’t stand and ‘covet,’ but I would so love to have that for Alfaretta. I promised to bring her something home and that would please her to death!”
“Good thing she isn’t to have it then!” he returned.
Dorothy laughed. “Course. I don’t mean that. I’m always getting reproved for ‘extravagant language.’ Miss Rhinelander says it’s almost as bad as extravagant—umm, doing. You know what I mean. Listen. I’ll tell you how I lost it, but we must hurry. I smell dinners in the houses we pass and I reckon it’s mighty late.”
She narrated the story of her loss and her New York experiences in a few graphic sentences; and had only concluded when they reached the hotel piazza, bordering the street, and saw their whole party sitting there waiting the dinner summons. The faces of the elders all looked a little stern, even that of the genial Judge himself; and Molly promptly voiced the thoughts of the company when she demanded:
“Well, I should like to know where you have been! We were afraid something had happened, and I think it’s mean, real mean I say, to scare people who are on a holiday. Dorothy, child, where have you been?”
“Ox-omobiling,” answered poor Dorothy, meekly, and feeling as if she were confessing a positive crime.
“W-h-a-t?” gasped Molly amazed.
“Ox-omobiling. I didn’t mean—”
“What in the world is that? Did you do it with that boy? Is he—where—what—do tell and not plague me so.”