“Now, you are not to worry, mother dearest,” interrupted Barbara, “or we won’t go a single step. Beside, have you forgotten the twenty-dollar gold-pieces? They are a fortune, two fortunes really.” Barbara had been doing some pretty deep thinking herself, on the clothes question, but it would never do to let her thoughts be known. As elder daughter she tried to save her mother from all the worries she could. “While there are no men around in the family, you’ll just have to pretend I’m older son instead of daughter,” she used to say. “When Mollie marries I’ll resign.”
“I’m through dusting,” Mollie called from the dining-room. “This time I am surely going to get paper and pencil to put down what clothes we most need, if Barbara won’t stop any runaway horses while I am away.”
Mollie’s golden head and Barbara’s tawny one bent anxiously over the paper.
“Ruth’s such an impetuous dear! Starting off on our trip Monday does not give us time to get anything new. Mother, will you go in to town shopping for us, and then send the clothes on later? I suppose we shall be on the road some time. Ruth says we are to stop in any of the places we like, and see all the sights along the way,” continued Barbara.
Gloves, ribbons, stockings, hair ribbons, and—oh, dear, yes! A pink sash for Bab and a blue one for Mollie. Forty dollars wasn’t such a fortune after all. Where was the money left over for the party dresses? Both girls looked a little crestfallen, but Barbara shook her head at Mollie as a signal not to say anything aloud.
Mother had come into the open dining-room door and was watching the girls’ faces.
“I’ve a secret,” Mrs. Thurston said, after a minute. “A beautiful secret that I have been keeping to myself for over a year, now. But I think to-day is the best time I can find to tell it.” Mrs. Thurston was fragile and blond, like Mollie, with a delicate color in her cheeks, and the sweetest smile in the world.
“It’s a nice secret, mother, I can tell by your face.” Mollie put her arm around her mother and pulled her down in a chair, while she and Bab sat on either side of her. “Now, out with it!” they both cried.
“Daughters,” Mrs. Thurston lowered her voice and spoke in a whisper, “upstairs, in my room in the back part of my desk is an old bank book. What do you think is pressed between the pages?” She paused a minute, and Mollie gave her arm a little shake. “In that book,” the mother continued, “are two fifty-dollar bills; one is labeled ‘Bab’ and the other is labeled ‘Baby.’” Mrs. Thurston still called her big, fourteen-year-old daughter “baby” when no one was near.
Mollie and Barbara could only stare at each other, and at their mother in surprise.