Dot stopped her song at once and her lips pouted.
“She isn’t dis—disreput’ble—she isn’t!” she cried, stormily. “She’s only sick. How would you like it, Aggie Kenway, if you’d been buried alive—and with dried apples—and had had your complexion spoiled?”
Dot was usually the most peaceful of mortals; but Agnes had touched a sore spot.
“Never mind; you shall take her, love,” Ruth said.
“I suppose if we want to go off on a real tour by and by—this coming vacation—Dot’ll have to lug that Alice-doll,” grumbled Agnes. “Suppose we meet nice people at some of the hotels we stop at, and other little girls have dolls? Dot’s will look as though she came from Meadow Street.” Meadow Street was in a poor section of Milton.
“I don’t care,” grumbled Dot; “she’s going.”
“She ought to go a hospital first,” declared Agnes.
“Who ought to go to a hospital?” demanded Neale, coming in again.
“My Alice-doll, Neale,” cried Dot, running to him, sure of sympathy—of a kind, at least.
“Well,” said the boy, “why not? If folks go to hospitals and get cured, why not dolls?”