Dot, who was called Dot, because she was a dot, though her parents had intended her to go through life as Geraldine, lifted her eyebrows slightly, and removing her four hairpins, shook down her hair and did it up again. The process took four seconds.
“I’d rather have Dot’s curls than Dorcas’ brains,” growled Bert to Agnes, who reproached him with a look.
While Dorcas’ motion was waiting for a second, there came down the road two pretty girls, in fluffy gowns, their white sunshades tilted charmingly. Max slammed the secretary’s book shut.
“Hurry up and let’s adjourn,” he said, and Archie, suddenly energetic, seconded the motion and carried it, so far as it concerned himself, by going out to meet the newcomers and invite them to go canoeing at once. Max followed suit, and the meeting broke up unceremoniously, but with a sense of valuable achievement.
45Dorcas, uttering harsh judgments upon the parliamentary methods of Polly Osgood, and, by inference, of all Wellesley College, attached herself to Bertha and Agnes for the homeward walk.
“See here, Dorcas Morehouse,” said Bertha so suddenly that her sister and Dorcas jumped. “If you think that just because you have been to Chicago University for a quarter, you are going to run us all, this summer, you are mightily mistaken. Agnes and Dot and I never went away to school, and neither did Bess nor Winifred, but we aren’t stupid, and we won’t have you patronizing us. Catherine Smith is intellectual enough for any one, and she never snubs or patronizes; and as for Polly Osgood, you wouldn’t dare hint a criticism of Wellesley if she were within hearing, and you know it. So there! If this library scheme is good enough for them, it is for the rest of us, and if you don’t like it, you can just stay out of it!”
Whereupon, Bertha, having delivered herself, even more to her own astonishment than to any one else’s, turned at the first corner and walked rapidly away, leaving her embarrassed sister to placate the wrathful Dorcas in any way her gentle heart suggested.
46CHAPTER FOUR
WITH PAIL AND BROOM
“Please forscuse me. Here’s the key,” and Elsmere held out to Catherine the aforesaid article, his honeyed voice and polite words matched by a cherubic smile.