“Great Scott!” cried Billy, beginning to laugh, “You are a queer girl! I say, Aunt Lydia, let her disguise herself some more, if that’s what she wants. Give her some of your clothes, or the chambermaid’s, or somebody’s. Would that be all right, Louise?”
“Why, yes indeed!” said Louise, grinning joyously. “Lead on, Desperate Desmond.”
“I never saw such girls!” said Miss Lawrence. “However, you may as well have your play out. William, get a bellboy to put these goods somewhere. I’ll take these objects of charity to get ready for dinner. Your room’s next suite twelve, the one I have.”
She shepherded the two girls upstairs by the staircase, instead of the elevator, as if she wanted them to be conspicuous.
“Now, remember,” explained she, “you’re two young foreign peddlers that I’m giving a dinner to out of the kindness of my heart. I’m loaning you clothes out of the same thing. So you can go right on peddling if you want to, you with the business instinct—Louise you said your name was? Very well, Louise, you can go on selling your potteries and bead bags after dinner—if you want to. But I want to talk to Winona myself. I don’t know but I still want to adopt her!”
Miss Lawrence left the girls alone when she had shown them to a room, and went to prepare for dinner herself. There was a bathroom next to them, and they made for it—one after another, of course—with gurgles of joy. Winona went first, while Louise was doing her hair, which was so thick and long it took a great deal of time to arrange.
“Isn’t hot water heavenly when you haven’t seen it in a tub for a week and a half?” said Winona, emerging in a borrowed kimono, which she presently passed on to Louise.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve tried,” said Louise, disappearing in her turn into the bathroom. She turned around and poked out her head to say, “Now, remember, we’ve both got to keep on looking as old as we can. We have characters to keep up!”
Winona began to investigate the clothes Miss Lawrence had laid out for them. She did not expect to find anything more exciting than a black silk with a fichu, or something else elderly of that sort. Instead, there lay on the bed two pretty frocks which had certainly been made for girls of their age.
She held them both up against her. They were a little shorter than she usually wore her skirts, both of them, and a little loose. Evidently their owner was of a build somewhere between Winona and Louise. But Louise, when she emerged, was quite pleased at that, for what was short for Winona was long for her, naturally, and carried out the idea of age that she wished to convey. She chose the more elaborate of the two, a green silk, because the other dress was pink, which doesn’t match red hair. But it did match Winona’s brown hair and blue eyes beautifully, and the wide satin sash was very becoming to her. The girls gave their tennis shoes a liberal dose of whitening, and decided that they would have to do. There were stockings to go with the dresses.