“Oh my goodness me!” Alexia gave a little scream, and nearly fell backward. “Look—it's on your own head! Oh, girls, I shall die.” She pointed tragically up to the hat, then gave a sudden nip with her long fingers, and brought out of a knot of ribbon, a gilt, twisted affair with pink stones. “You had it all the time, Sally Moore,” and she went into peals of laughter.
“Well, do stop; everybody's looking,” cried the rest of the girls, as they raced off to the train, now at a dead stop. Sally, with her hat crammed on her head at a worse angle than ever, only realized that she had the ornament safely clutched in her hand.
“Oh, I can't help it,” exclaimed Alexia gustily, and hurrying off to get next to Polly. “Oh dear me!—whee—whee!” as they all plunged into the train.
When they arrived at Edgewood, there was a carriage and a wagonette drawn up by the little station, and out of the first jumped Silvia, and following her, a tall, thin girl who seemed to have a good many bracelets and jingling things.
“My cousin, Kathleen Briggs. She just came to-day,” said Silvia, “while I was at school, and so mother thought it would be nice to have you girls out to supper, 'cause they're only going to stay till to-morrow. Oh, it's so fine that you've come! Well, come and get in. Polly, you're going in the carriage with Kathleen and me. Come on.”
Alexia crowded up close behind.
“I'm going with Polly Pepper, this time,” announced Sally, pushing in between; “Alexia always gets her.”
“Well, she's my very dearest friend,” said Alexia coolly, and working her long figure up close to Polly, as Silvia led her off, “so of course I always must go with her.”
“Well, so she is our very dearest friend, too, Alexia Rhys,” declared Clem, “and we're going to have her sometimes, ourselves.” And there they were in a dreadful state, and Silvia's cousin, the new girl, to see it all!
She jingled her bracelets, and picked at the long chain dangling from her neck, and stared at them all.