"Oh!" breathed Hope, faintly; and "Oh!" echoed Kate, in the same tone.
"No, it was meant that she shouldn't have one; but I had written one, and I was going to send it if—if my mother hadn't stopped it."
"Your mother?"
"Yes, my mother. I had already sent out quite a number of invitations, and had just got another lot ready, when my mother came in and saw Dorothea's name on one of the notes. The moment she saw it, she forbade me to send it. Mother was at the New Year's party,—perhaps you remember,—just at the last of it, when Dorothea was going on so, and she took a great dislike to Dorothea then. Dorothea was noisy, you know. Mother thought she was very loud and underbred. But that—that wasn't all. A little while ago some acquaintances of ours from Philadelphia—the Cargills—were staying at the Waldorf. The next day after they arrived, they went to a matinée at the Madison Square Theatre, and saw there my brother Raymond, and with him a young girl. Of course they thought the girl was some member of our family; and when he went to speak to them, they asked him if that was another sister he had with him, and he told them no; that it was only an acquaintance,—a girl who was in a boarding-school in the city. Mrs. Cargill thought this was very odd; and as Raymond was so young, she spoke about it to mamma. Mamma was astonished, and she went straight to Raymond and asked him what it all meant, and who the girl was; and Raymond had to tell the whole story then,—that it was Dorothea Dering, from Miss Marr's school; that he had invited her to go to the matinée with him, and that she had accepted the invitation; and then that he had met her at the skating-pond in Central Park, and had gone from there with her to the theatre, unsuspected by any of the teachers. The minute mamma heard the name, 'Dorothea Dering,' she recalled the New Year's party and Dorothea's behavior there; and so, and so, don't you see, when she saw Dorothea's name on the envelope, the other day, she thought of all these things, and—and forbade my sending the note. I tried my best to get her to let me send it; I told her what Anna Fleming had said to me,—that Dorothea came from one of the first families of Massachusetts; that her father was the Hon. James Dering, and all her people were in the very best society. But the more I tried to talk Dorothea up in this way, the more decided mamma grew; until, at last, she said that there had been too much of this falling back upon one's family nowadays; that bad, loud manners and rude behavior were not to be overlooked and excused on that account, and that she didn't propose to overlook Dorothea's by having her invited to her house. And when I said I thought that Raymond was as much to blame, in asking her to go to the matinée, as Dorothea was in going, mamma said that that didn't help her case at all; that Raymond's invitation was only the result of her own loud, free ways; that he would never have thought of inviting her like that, if she had been a different kind of girl. Oh,"—with a quick look at Hope and Kate,—"mamma didn't altogether exonerate Raymond; she didn't think he was altogether right, by any means; but then she does think—and so do I, girls—that boys and young men are apt to treat a girl a good deal as the girl treats them; and—and—Dorothea was too forward with Raymond. I saw it myself from the first; and she led him on,—she encouraged him to treat her as he wouldn't have treated either of you two. She thought he admired just those free, foolish ways of hers; but he didn't,—he was only amused by them. Oh, I know Raymond; and I know if he had seen me going on with any one as Dorothea did, he would have scolded me well. It wouldn't have amused him to have seen his sister going on so, to have seen me amusing any one like that. But, Hope, Kate, all the same, I felt dreadfully at leaving Dorothea out,—dreadfully, for there I'd sent off almost all the school invitations; there was no getting them back. If I could have got them back, I would; and—yes, truly, I wouldn't have sent any invitations to any one at Miss Marr's, if I had known I had got to cut Dorothea. No; I wouldn't have sent one, and then I could have explained it to the rest of you privately, or I could have said I couldn't make so large a party this year. Yes, I would certainly have done this if it hadn't been too late,—if mamma had only seen and stopped Dorothea's invitation before the other school notes had been sent. Yes, I would have done just that; and not because I'm at all fond of Dorothea, but because I hate to hurt anybody's feelings, and to—to make such a time. I should have gone back to school this week if it hadn't been for this happening; but I'm not going now until after the party, and I may not go until next term if my father will take me away with him to Florida, where he is going next month; and I hope, oh, I hope he will!" And here suddenly, to Hope and Kate's astonishment, this quiet, self-contained Bessie Armitage covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
"Oh, Bessie! Bessie!" broke forth Hope and Kate, with a warm outrushing of sympathy, and a desire to say something comforting,—"oh, Bessie, Bessie!" and then suddenly they both stopped, for what could they say further without saying something that would seem like a protest against Mrs. Armitage's decision,—that, in fact, would be a protest, for both girls were protesting in their hearts at that moment, were saying something like this to themselves,—
"What harm could it have done to let this invitation go,—just this one? They needn't ever have invited her again." And at that very moment, as they were thus thinking, they heard the rings of a portière slip aside, and there was Mrs. Armitage herself, entering from the next room with a kind look of concern on her face, and in another moment, after her friendly greeting, she was saying,—
"Bessie has told you my decision about the invitation to Miss Dering, and I dare say you think I am very stiff and hard, not to let the invitation go,—that it can't make much difference for this once; but, my dears, it is this once, this one party, where my little ten-year-old Amy and her little cousins will be in amongst the older ones, that will make all the difference, for I don't want these little girls to see such an exhibition of loud manners, and those—I hate to say it—vulgar flirting ways such as I saw New Year's evening. If it were any other party, a party where there were older girls only, I might have let the invitation go; but I have seen the ill effects of very young girls like my Amy and her cousins being brought into contact even for a short time with a handsome showy girl who does and says the kind of things that Miss Dering does, especially when that girl is accepted as a guest by their own friends; and so, if only for this one reason apart from any other, don't you see, my dears, that I couldn't let this invitation go?"
"Yes, I do see, I do see!" cried Kate, impulsively; "but—Mrs. Armitage, do you think she—Dorothea will understand—will know that it is her own fault?"
"I—I think she will, I think she must," answered Mrs. Armitage. There were tears in her eyes as she said this; and as she bent down and kissed them good-by, both Hope and Kate felt the depth and sincerity of her purpose, and respected her for it.
"She's right, she's right of course!" burst forth Kate, as the two girls were driving away together; "but, oh, I do wish she hadn't been quite so right, quite so high-minded just now; for what an uncomfortable time is ahead of us! Oh, Hope, I pity you; what shall you—what can you tell Dorothea?"