“Perhaps. I don’t know, Betty. Separation sometimes makes it impossible to keep in touch. But don’t let me start unhappy thoughts about this. I shall do everything I can to let you have friends and a happy time. You always have; why not here in the city? Just so you have none that will hurt you. But you are not likely to choose that kind, I think. Please remember, Betty, that you can’t touch coal without getting black.”
“But you ought to be friendly with everybody, oughtn’t you?”
“Certainly, so far as being kind–but let the older folks do the reforming, Betty. Well, all this about one innocent party? What should you wear, Betty?”
“Just what I was going to ask you! But I’ll find out from Peggy. They are going to play tennis and things. I wish I had a real ‘sport costume,’ for I don’t suppose they’ll wear ‘party dresses’ to an outdoor party like this.”
“Perhaps we can fix something up, Betty. If you only hadn’t outgrown everything so! We can’t afford new clothes right now, after all our moving and what we have had to buy to fix up this place. And social prominence does not enter into our plans right at present.” Mrs. Lee smiled at Betty, who was sitting in a low chair now with her hands folded on her knees.
“It never does,” laughed Betty, “but you usually can’t help having it. I should think it would be a rest not to be president of a club or responsible for church things. Nevertheless, Mother, don’t hide your light under a bushel!”
With this advice, Betty jumped up to run out into the kitchen and pantry, for investigation of the cooky jar. Crumbs about showed that Doris or Dick had been there before her, and she heard Amy Lou’s childish laughter coming from the back yard. But Betty’s lessons were hard for the next day and she returned to the living room to take one of her texts back to her room and study a while by herself.
[CHAPTER VII: CAROLYN’S GARDEN PARTY]
The rest of the week went by in pleasant anticipation of the garden party, Betty’s first. To be sure there had been “loads of picnics,” and lawn fetes for the church, usually in the spring or early summer. But a real “garden party” must be different. There was much consultation about clothes between Betty and her mother. One of the girls had said that of course one wouldn’t wear her old clothes, or her Girl Scout or Camp Fire Girl suits, as you would on a picnic to the woods. She was going to play tennis, and her mother had gotten her an “awfully pretty” white sport suit!
Well, what was a sport suit anyhow? Mrs. Lee took Amy Lou down town, one morning when Mr. Lee could drive them down, and spent a rather trying morning trying to shop with a child. She looked at dresses and patterns, with a view of fitting Betty suitably for the occasion. But the new things were expensive. Finally, by letting down a skirt Betty had and arranging a suitable blouse, or upper part, what Betty called a “near-sport” frock was evolved.