“Oh, yes, and so many girls came Saturday afternoon and we’re having the prettiest dolls fixed for the Toy Show. I can scarcely tell you fast enough. When we sit down at the table, I can tell all the details you’d like to know.”
But Doris was full of her own plans and told Betty how her mother was letting her “stay all night” with Stacia Barnett, a recent friend, whom Doris was admiring at present with all her freshman heart. There was to be a freshman party that afternoon, a Christmas party, near the Barnett home; so Doris was to go home with Stacia and stay that Friday night and perhaps over Sunday, the Sunday before Christmas. “I am going carolling, too,” said Doris.
“That is fine,” said Betty, though she did not admire Stacia particularly and wondered at the choice of Doris in being as intimate as the two girls were at present. Doris rattled on, to Betty’s relief, and Betty’s experience was put into the background, which was just as well.
Later Mrs. Lee came to Betty to ask her what she thought about her permitting Doris to go with Stacia for such a visit. “Doris tells me that Stacia is such a fine girl; and you were not here to tell me anything about her.” Mrs. Lee looked thoughtful. “You know I do not approve of week-end visits as a rule, except with older girls. But Doris was so insistent and reminded me that you were having ‘everything you wanted’—so for the sake of peace I yielded. I always want you children to do what you want to do, if it is good for you.”
“I know you do, and you’re the dearest mother in the world!” warmly said Betty, giving her mother a hug. They were sitting on the edge of Betty’s bed for a mother and daughter chat.
“I don’t believe there is any harm in letting Doris go, Mother. So far as I know, Stacia is all right. She puts a good deal of color on her face sometimes; but some nice girls do, and the freshmen have to try everything, you know. We can trust Doris to have a little sense, I suppose.”
“I’m not so sure,” smiled Mrs. Lee. “Doris is getting a little heady of late. Keep an eye on her at school, Betty. Doris is a lovely child and I want her to have helpful companions, not the kind that she has to help.”
Betty laughed at that and went on to tell her mother about Grandmother Ferris and the dolls and how good Mr. Murchison was to her. “That is something that I thought Father would like to know about the head of the firm,” finished Betty.
Perhaps it was because Betty had in mind her mother’s injunction that she happened to see Doris and Stacia in one of the halls at school as she passed from one class to another.
Doris, seeing Betty, hastened to turn her face in another direction and stepped behind Stacia. But Betty had already seen that the bright and attractive face of her younger sister was just a little too bright, with a stain of color high on her cheeks and a red on her lips that could only be from lipstick.