“I hope she didn’t get a rose-colored dress, that’s my color,” went on Louise. “And if two of us were dressed alike at that small party we’d look like twins or something,” she finished, tittering happily at the idea.
“Ruth is so much, so sort of—a lot,” Esther ventured, “she’s almost twins herself. But here’s where we part. Be ready at three and we’ll all go in our big car.”
“In style,” added Lida. “It’s lovely you have a big car, Esther.”
“And a good-natured mother,” added Louise. “I suppose she gave up something, to drive for us this lovely afternoon.”
“She was glad to give it up,” confessed Esther, “for it’s a meeting on the summer exhibit. I can’t see why towns always have to do summer things that keep folks so busy.”
“Because there are not enough folks to do things in winter,” said little Lida quietly. “Mother’s on a committee and she thinks it’s going to be fine.”
“I guess they’ve got all our mothers on,” grumbled Louise. “But we always have to have something every summer. Well, good-bye for a while,” as they reached the little dividing park, “and I’ll be ready, Esther.”
“Don’t forget your robe,” called out Esther jokingly, for their robes had suddenly become an all-important item in the house-party programme.
CHAPTER III
HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER
In a house that hid behind friendly old trees cuddled in trumpet vines and tender, little trailing things, Barbara Hale and her father, Dr. Winthrop Hale, lived. It was just off the road that stretched into the newly settled summer place called by the land developers Sea Cosset. A fanciful name indeed, and its choice had caused much discussion, for as every one with access to a dictionary soon discovered, cosset means pet and is usually applied to a little lamb.