“Oh, but I’m going to marry some day,” said Dollie, merrily, as she clambered into bed and placed her pretty plump arms above her head. “Ralph says he won’t wait very long after he is able to support me.”
“I’ll have to scold Ralph a little,” said Marion, pinching her sister’s dimpled arm as it lay on the pillow. “He must not be in such a hurry to rob me of my sister, not that I blame him a bit, do you?” she added, laughing.
“Not a bit,” said Miss Allyn, quickly. “I’m half in love with her myself. Still, I’d rather she’d marry a millionaire, and she could do it just as easily. Ralph Moore is all right, but he’s too poor for Dollie.”
“Oh, Miss Allyn!” cried both girls in half serious horror. “Who ever would have dreamed of you harboring such sentiments?”
“Well, I’ve got ’em, and I might as well be honest,” was the answer. “Dollie’s too pretty to have to spend her life in a poor man’s home. I want to see diamonds in her golden hair and fine lace on those white shoulders, and I don’t see why she can’t love a rich man as well as a poor one.”
“If she could it would be all right, and I would agree with you,” said Marion, thoughtfully.
“Well, I’ll never love any one but Ralph,” said Dollie, stoutly, “and I don’t care if he is poor. It just makes me love him still the harder.”
“You are a brave little kitten,” said Marion, smoothing the golden hair, “but what is it, Alma, you look so terribly serious?”
Miss Allyn was just raising her hand to turn off the gas for the girls before going to her own room, but she waited long enough to make a candid statement.
“I know a young man that would make a lovely husband for one of you girls,” she said, slowly. “He’s an only child, and he’s as rich as Crœsus.”