"It would just suit Clementina, wouldn't it?" suggested Lucy.
"Yes," sighed Annie, taking up the little frock, and imagining she saw her own doll attired in its gorgeousness. After regarding it enviously for a few moments, she said: "Say, Lucy, give it to me, won't you?"
"Why, the idea!" cried Lucy, aghast at the audacity of the proposal.
"I think you might," pouted Annie. "You hardly ever give me anything, although you are my dearest friend. I made you a present of Clementina's second best hat for Christabel, and only yesterday I gave you that sweet bead ring you asked me for."
These unanswerable arguments were lost upon Lucy, however. She snatched away the tiny frock, and both little girls sulked a while.
"Lucy's real mean!" said Annie to herself. "She ought to give it to me,—she knows she ought! Oh, dear, I want it awfully! She owes me something for what I've given her.—I am going home," she announced aloud.
"Oh, no!" protested Lucy, aroused to the sense of her duties as hostess. "Let us put away the dolls and read. There is a splendid new story this week in the Young Folks' Magazine."
Taking Annie's silence for assent, she packed Christabel and her belongings away again, and went to get the book. Annie waited sullenly. Then, as her friend did not come back immediately, she began to fidget.
"Lucy need not have been in such a hurry to whisk her things into the box," she complained. "To look at the red dress won't spoil it, I suppose. I will have another look at it, anyhow!"
She raised the cover of the box and took out the dainty dress. Still Lucy did not return. A temptation came to Annie. Why not keep the pretty red silk frock? Lucy would not miss it at once; afterward she would think she had mislaid it. She would never suspect the truth. Annie breathed hard. If she had quickly put the showy bit of trumpery back into the box and banished the covetous wish, all would have been well; but instead, she stood deliberating and turning the little dress over and over in her hands. Meantime a hospitable thought had occurred to Lucy. She remembered that there was a new supply of apples in the pantry, and had gone to get one for Annie and one for herself. On her way through the dining-room she happened to look out of the window.