"Say, Sheila, wot'll you wear to-night?" she yelled above the clatter.
"Wear?" repeated Sheila.
"To the dance, you silly! What did you think I meant—to bed?"
Sheila's tired pallor deepened a little. "I am not going to the dance."
"Not going?" Babe put down a plate. "What do you mean? Of course you're going! You've gotta go. Say—Momma, Pap, Girlie"—she ran, at a sort of sliding gallop across the oilcloth through the swinging door into the dining-room—"will you listen to this? Sheila says she's not going to the dance!"
"Well," said "Momma" audibly, "she'd better. I'm agoin' to put out the fires, and the house'll be about 12 below."
Sylvester murmured, "Oh, we must change that."
And Girlie said nothing.
"Well," vociferated Babe. "I call it too mean for words. I've just set my heart on her meeting some of the folks and getting to know Millings. She's been here a whole two weeks and she hasn't met a single fellow but Dickie, and he don't count, and she hasn't even got friendly with any of the girls. And I wanted her to see one of our real swell affairs. Why—just for the credit of Millings, she's gotta go."
"Why fuss her about it, if she don't want to?" Girlie's soft voice was poured like oil on the troubled billows of Babe's outburst.