After all it was lovely to be in a girl’s world. She was surprised to find how jolly it was, so much better than being alone and thinking about “bugs,” the term she usually applied to the bacteriological germs her father kept himself so busily occupied with.
“Different in one day,” she thought, for Babs was sure to think. She had a habit of analyzing things within and without, and she was not deceiving herself now. All that “difference” which people would insist upon ascribing to her was no difference at all. It was merely a matter of environment. When alone with her father, with Glenn for a student-companion she was one sort of Babs, but when surrounded by happy young friends, such as were with her now, she was decidedly another sort.
“Enjoying yourself, Babs?” Cara made chance to ask. She sat at the next table with Dick and Louise and had been watching Babs.
“Wonderfully,” replied Babs, smiling that Cara could have so easily divined her thoughts. But, as a matter of fact, Barbara’s expression just then was easy enough to interpret. She was smiling happily all over her face.
Persons passing in and out also smiled and whispered. It was “Cara Burke’s party”, they might have been heard to remark, and Babs was not the only one of the party proud to be in her particular place. It was well worth while to be there.
“And I didn’t want to come,” Barbara secretly charged herself. “I would never have known what I missed.”
When they reached home the boys delayed for a while out on the big white porch. It was then that Dudley spoke privately to Babs, after managing to get her apart from the others.
“Listen,” he implored. “I’ve got to tell you. I know you’re sore——”
“What did you take the girls there for?” she broke in sharply. She was referring, of course, to their slumming and the Italian children.
“But the girls were saying such crazy things about the kids,” Dudley protested. “You never heard such rot.”