TWO LITTLE WOMEN

AND TREASURE HOUSE

“All right,” Dolly blazed back, “if she doesn’t go, I don’t!” (Page 111)

TWO LITTLE WOMEN

AND TREASURE HOUSE

BY

CAROLYN WELLS

Author of The Patty Books, The Marjorie Books,

Two Little Women Series, etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

E. C. CASWELL

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1916

Copyright, 1916

By DODD MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

TWO LITTLE WOMEN

AND TREASURE HOUSE

CHAPTER I
ALL THEIR OWN!

“Oh, two rooms!”

“Oh, a fireplace!”

“Oh, a window-seat!”

“Two window-seats!”

These exclamations fell swiftly and explosively from the lips of Dotty Rose and Dolly Fayre, as they leaned over the table at which Mr. Rose was drawing plans.

And such plans! And for such a purpose! Why, the whole project was nothing more nor less than a house, a real little house for those two fortunate girls! All their own, with fireplaces and window-seats and goodness knows what all delightful contrivances.

It had come about because of the fact that the girls had to study pretty hard, now that they were in High School, and both found difficulty in finding just the right place to study. Dolly declared that Trudy was always having company, and the laughter and chatter was so permeating, she couldn’t find a place in the house to get out of hearing the noise. While Dotty said little Genie was always carrying on with her young playmates, or else Mother and Aunt Clara were having Sewing Society or something, and she never could be quiet in the library. The girls, of course, had their own bedrooms, but both mothers objected, on hygienic grounds, to using those for sitting-rooms.

So Mr. Rose had cooked up a most fascinating scheme, and after a discussion with Mr. Fayre, he elucidated it to the girls. It seemed Mr. Fayre fully approved of it, and was quite willing to pay his share of the expense, but he was too busy to look after the details of building, and begged Mr. Rose to attend to all that.

Mr. Rose, who was cashier of the Berwick Bank, had plenty of leisure time, and, moreover, had a taste for architecture, so the plans were in process of drafting. As the house was to be exceedingly simple, he felt he could plan it all himself, and thus save the expense of an architect.

“You see,” he said to his interested audience, “it is really nothing but a summer house, only it is enclosed, so as to be—”

“A winter-house!” interrupted Dotty. “Oh, Daddy, it is too perfectly scrumptiousiferous! I don’t see how I can live through such joy!”

Dolly’s blue eyes sparkled, but her pleasure was too deep for words, and she expressed it in long drawn sighs, and occasional Oh’s!

“Say twenty feet by fifteen for the whole house,” Mr. Rose said, musingly. “Then divide that in halves. Thus we have a front room, a sort of living room, ten by fifteen. Quite big enough, for in addition we can have a deep window-seat at each end.”

“Where we can curl up in to study!” cried Dotty. “Oh, Dollyrinda, did you ever dream anything so perfect?”

“I never did! And what is in the other room, Mr. Rose?”

“Well, a sort of dining-room, say ten by ten of it, and that will leave a neat little five by ten for a bit of a kitchenette.”

“Ooh—eeh—I can’t take it all in! A kitchenette! Where we can make fudge and cook messes—oh, Dad-dy!” Dotty threw her arms around her father’s neck, and in her great gratitude, Dolly did too.

“Well, of course, the dining-room isn’t exactly for an eating room exclusively, but I know you will enjoy having little teas there with your friends, or taffy pulls or whatever the fad is nowadays.”

“Oh, indeed we can,” said Dolly; “we can all go there after skating and have hot chocolate and sandwiches! Maybe it won’t be fun!”

“But it is primarily for study,” warned Mr. Rose. “I don’t think though, you two bookworms will neglect your lessons.”

He was right, for both Dolly and Dotty were studious, and now, being in the High School, they were most anxious to make good records. They studied diligently every evening, and though Dotty learned her lessons more quickly, Dolly remembered hers better. But both were fond of fun and frolic, and they foresaw wonderful opportunities in the new house.

“Oh, a piazza!” squealed Dotty, as under her father’s clever fingers a wide piazza showed on the paper.

“Yes, of course; this will be a summer house also, you know, and a piazza is a necessity. Perhaps in the winter it can be enclosed with glass. All such details must come later. First we must get the proportions and the main plan. And here it is, in a nutshell. Or, rather, in a rectangle. Just half is the living-room, and the other half is two-thirds dining-room and one-third kitchen. The kitchen includes kitchenette and pantry.”

“What is a kitchenette, exactly?” asked Dolly.

“Only what its name implies,” returned Mr. Rose, smiling. “Just a little kitchen. There will be a gas stove,—no, I think it would be better for you to have it all electric. Then you can have an electric oven and toaster and chafing-dish, and any such contraptions you want. How’s that?”

“Too good to be true!” and Dolly sighed in deep contentment. “How long will it take to build it?”

“Not long, if I can get the workmen to go right at it, and I hope I can. Now, suppose we plan the living-room, which is, of course, the study.”

“Let’s call it the Study,” said Dolly. “Sounds sort of wise and grown-up.”

“Very well. Here then, in the Study, suppose we have the door right in the middle of the front wall, and opening on the front veranda. Then a small window each side of the door, and a big square bay, with cushioned seat, at each end of the room.”

“Glorious!” and Dolly danced about on one foot. “Then we can each have one of them to study in, every afternoon after school.”

“With a blazing wood fire—where’s the fireplace, Daddy?”

“Here, opposite the entrance door. Then you see, one chimney in the middle of the house, will provide for a fireplace in each room. I’m not sure this will give you heat enough. If not, you must depend on gas logs. We can’t be bothered with a furnace of any sort. Perhaps in the very coldest weather you can’t inhabit your castle.”

“Oh, that won’t matter,” and Dolly’s good-natured face smiled brightly; “if we have it most of the time, we’ll willingly study somewhere else on extra cold days. And at one side of the fireplace, the door through to the dining-room—oh, yes, I see.”

“Right, my child. And on the other side of the fireplace, in the Study, a set of built-in bookshelves, and in the dining-room, a built-in glass closet.”

“But we haven’t any glass!” and Dotty looked amazed at the idea.

“Well, I dare say the mothers of you will scout around and give you some old junk from the attics. I know of a gorgeous dish you can have.” Mr. Rose’s eyes twinkled, and Dotty broke into laughter: “I know! you mean ‘The Eyesore’!”

This was a hideous affair that some one had sent Mrs. Rose as a Christmas Gift, and the family had long since relegated it to the oblivion of a dark cupboard. “No, thank you!” Dot went on, “I’d rather have things from the ten-cent store.”

“They have some awfully nice things there,” suggested Dolly, “and I know Mother has a lot of odds and ends we can have. Oh, when the house is built, it will be lots of fun to furnish it. Trudy will make us lovely table-covers and things like that. And we can have paper napkins for our spreads.”

“And Aunt Clara says she will make all the curtains,—whatever sort we want.”

“That’s lovely of her! I know we’ll have lots of things given to us, and we’ll find lots of things around our homes—and the rest we’ll do ourselves.”

“Yes, and Thomas will bring wood for us, and take away the ashes. We must have enormous wood-baskets or wood-boxes. Oh, it’s just like furnishing a real house! What loads of fun we’ll have!”

“Then, in the kitchen,” Mr. Rose went on, drawing as he spoke, “we’ll have a tiny sink, all nice white enamel, and a wall-cupboard for your dish-towels and soap and such things. Also a sort of a small—a very small—kitchen cabinet for your pepper and salt, with a place underneath for pans and kettles.”

“You think a lot about the kitchen, Daddy. I believe you expect to come there sometimes to join our feasts.”

“I certainly shall, if I’m invited. Then, you see, the dining-room can have a deep window, and if you don’t care for a window-seat there, how about a window-box of bright flowers?”

“I don’t know about that, Mr. Rose,” demurred Dolly. “If the house isn’t always warm, the poor posies would freeze, wouldn’t they?”

“Right you are, Dollykins. Cut out the growing plants, then, and have now and then a vase or bowl of flowers on the table. Now, let me see. An electric light over the table in the dining-room, and perhaps a side light or two. Then in the Study, a reading light for each, and one or two pretty fixtures beside.”

“Why, will we use it so much at night, Mr. Rose?”

“If you choose to. And anyway, in the winter time, you’ll need lights by five o’clock, or on dark days, even earlier.”

“That’s so; how thoughtful you are. I s’pose some days we won’t go in the house at all, and others we’ll be there all the afternoon and all the evening.”

“And all Saturdays,” said Dotty; “we’ll always spend Saturdays there, and we can make things for the house or make our Christmas presents, or make fudge and have the girls and boys come over—”

“Or just sit by the fire and read,” interrupted Dolly.

“Oh, you old kitten! You’d rather lie by the fire and purr than do anything at all!”

“Well, then I’ll do that. We’re to do whatever we please in our own house, aren’t we, Mr. Rose?”

“Yes, indeed, Dolly. But amicable always. No, I don’t think you two are inclined to quarrel, but you do have little differences now and then, and I’d hate to have the charm of this little nest disturbed by foolish squabbles.”

“I’ll promise, for one, never to scrap,” said Dolly, eagerly, and Dotty said with equal fervour, “Me, too!”

“We’ll have nice, plain, hard floors,” continued Mr. Rose, “and I’m sure your mothers can find some discarded rugs.”

“Oh, we can make those,” exclaimed Dolly. “Don’t you know, Dot, that new way your Aunt Clara told us about? You take rags, you know, and sew them in pipings, and then crochet them,—oh, it’s just lovely!”

“Yes, I know. We’ll each make one of those, it’ll be fine!”

“And we’ll put them in the Study, one on each side of the room. Yours on my side, mine on yours.”

“All right. Which side do you want?”

“I’ll take the side next my house and you the side next yours. Then if our mothers call us, we can hear them.”

“Good idea,” said Mr. Rose. “I think we’ll put the house just on the dividing line between your father’s ground and mine.”

“And Mother can hang a red flag out the window if she wants me in a hurry. Or if dinner is ready.”

“We might have a telephone,” suggested Dotty.

“We’ll see about that later,” said Mr. Rose. “You must remember that the expenses are counting up, and Mr. Fayre and I are not millionaires. But we want you to have a good substantial little nook for yourselves. Then, later, if we see fit to add a telephone or a wireless apparatus or an airship garage, we can do so.”

“All right,” returned Dotty with a satisfied grin. “Say, Doll, shall we bring our desks from our bedrooms?”

“No,” Mr. Rose answered for her. “Those are too flimsy and dainty; and besides, you’ll need them where they are. I shall ask the privilege of contributing two solid, sensible Mission desks of greenish tinge, with chairs to match. Then if you want to curl up on your window cushions to study you may, but there will be a place to write your compositions.”

“Lovely, Father! How good you are!” and Dotty fell on his neck, while Dolly possessed herself of his hand and patted it.

The two girls were equally fond of their fathers, but Mr. Rose was more chummy in manner than Mr. Fayre. The latter was devoted to his children, but was less demonstrative of his affection.

But Dolly well knew that her father would not be outdone in kindness or generosity and that he would give an equally welcome gift, as well as pay his share of the building expenses.

“All right, Mr. Rose,” she said, “if you do that, I’m sure father will furnish the dining-room with whatever we want.”

“There won’t be much needed for that, just a table and chairs, which can doubtless be snared in our attics. But your father, Dotty, offered the whole kitchenette outfit, which, I can tell you, is a noble gift.”

“Indeed it is!” cried Dotty. “I’m crazy to get at that electricky-cooky business!”

“So’m I,” declared Dolly. “When will it be all done, Mr. Rose?”

“Can’t say exactly. If all goes well you ought to get in by the last of October.”

“About Hallowe’en, then,” said Dolly. “We might have a kind of Hallowe’en party for a house-warming.”

“Gay!” cried Dotty. “We’ll get all our treasures in it by that time.”

“Let’s call it our Treasure House,—how’s that for a name?”

“Pretty good,” said Mr. Rose. “I’ve been wondering what to call it. Treasure House isn’t bad at all. Makes you think of Treasure Island.”

“Yes, so it does,” and Dolly’s blue eyes sparkled at the name of one of her best-loved books. “Oh, won’t it be fun to arrange our bookshelves. I’m glad to move some of my books, my shelves at home are overrunning.”

“Then, you see, children,” Mr. Rose was still adding to his drawings, “in the summer, you can have hammocks on the veranda, and piazza-boxes with flowers—”

“Yes, Daddy, dear, you shall get those flower-boxes set up as soon as the gentle Spring gets around.”

“Well, I do love flowers,” and Mr. Rose smiled, for his family well knew his great fondness for gardening. “Now you girls won’t have any too much time to get your flummerydiddles ready. For after the house is built and papered and painted, you ought to have your furnishings all ready. And to make curtains and cushions and lace whatd’y’callums—tidies? will be a few weeks’ work,—won’t it?”

“Yes, indeedy. But all our beloved lady relatives will help us and among our sisters and our mothers and our aunts, I ’spect we’ll accumulate about enough housekeeping stuff to stock a hotel.” Dotty danced around the table as she talked, and catching Dolly in her arms, the two executed a sort of triumphal hoppity-skip that expressed their joy and relieved their feelings.

“And now,” sighed Dolly, suddenly looking thoughtful, “I’ve got to go right straight, smack home and do my Geometry for to-morrow.”

“Oh, my goodness! me too!” exclaimed Dotty. “Dear! how I wish Treasure House was done, and I could go there to study. It’s an awful long time to wait.”

“But we can make things every chance we get. Oh, Dotty, I’m going to make a birch-bark scrapbasket. I’ve got a lot of that bark left that I brought down from Crosstrees. Won’t it be fine?”

“Great! Shall we have two?”

“No, only one scrapbasket and such things. It’s more cosy. But two of everything that we use separately. Like two desks, you know.”

“Only one set of bookshelves.”

“Well, there’ll be nooks for books, beside the fireplace, and beside the window casings,” said Mr. Rose, “in addition to the regular shelves. I haven’t half fixed those things up yet.”

“Oh, it will be just heavenly!” sighed Dolly. “But I must scoot to my Geometry now. See you to-morrow, Dot. Good-bye.”

“All right. Good-bye.”

CHAPTER II
A JOKE AT SCHOOL

When the two D’s reached school next morning, they found a group of their friends giggling and whispering in a corner of the Recreation Room.

“What’s the joke?” asked Dotty as they drew near.

“Hello, Two D’s,” cried Tod Brown. “How are you, Toodies? Just wait till you hear what’s up! The greatest sell ever! The biggest joke of the season. Oh, me, oh, my!”

“Tell us,” begged Dolly. “Tell us, Tod, what is it?” She was taking off her hat and coat as she talked, and as she stepped into the coatroom to hang them up, Celia Ferris slipped in and whispered to her. “Now don’t jump on the scheme, Dolly Fayre. You’re such a goody-goody, I’m half afraid to let you in on it.”

“Why, is it mean?” and Dolly’s blue eyes flashed, for she hated a mean joke.

“No, it isn’t mean, at least no meaner than she deserves. But I wish they wouldn’t tell you; you’re an old spoilsport, and I know you’ll say you won’t join in.”

“Join in what? Do tell me, or I can’t say what I’ll do.”

“Come on out. Tod will tell you,” and the two girls joined the others.

“What is it, Tod?” asked Dolly, as she came up to the laughing boy.

“Now, Dollykin, do be real nice and don’t be a horrid old Miss Prim! You see, Miss Partland, the Geometry teacher, is so cross and horrid and unjust to us, we’re going to pay her out. And we’ve thought up the greatest scheme! Just listen!”

“No, let me tell her,” said Joe Collins; “you’ll make it seem worse’n it is. Why, Doll, it’s only this. You see, Miss Partland isn’t looking very well, and we are all going to tell her so. She ought to know the truth. And she keeps a lot of us in every afternoon, and we don’t want her to. So we’re each going to tell her, as we get the chance, that she looks sort of ill, and then, we think she’ll want to go home early, herself, and she won’t stay to keep us in. Isn’t that all right?”

“Why, that doesn’t seem very bad,” said Dolly, dimpling as she smiled. “How are you going to bring it in?”

“Oh, just casually, you know. If you have a chance, you just say, ‘Aren’t you feeling well, Miss Partland?’ or something like that.”

“I’d just as lieve say that, if she looks ill; but I won’t if she doesn’t,” returned Holly, very decidedly.

“All right; you’ll find she looks ill. Why, the poor lady is on the verge of nervous prostration, and so will we all be, if she is so hard on us.”

“Did she keep you in, yesterday?”

“Yep; just ’cause I had a little mite of a mistake in one example! Oh, she’s the limit, she is!”

“And do you think she’ll be any sweeter-natured if we sympathise with her for feeling bad?”

“Well, maybe; you never can tell.”

“I think it’s a grand scheme!” declared Dotty. “She’s an old fuss anyway. She found fault with my examples because I didn’t take a separate sheet of paper for each one. I’d just as lieve, only I didn’t know she wanted me to.”

“How’s your house comin’ on, Dot?” sang out Lollie Henry.

“Perfectly great! It’ll be done by Hallowe’en, and maybe we won’t have one rollicking good time!”

“Won’t we just! You want to look out, you know Hallowe’en is the time for tricks, and I dunno what the boys will get off.”

“Not in our new house! If anybody takes our doors off of their hinges or does anything mean, I won’t stand it, that’s all!” and Dotty shook her curly black head and her dark eyes sparkled with anger at the thought of such desecration.

“Well, look out, that’s all,” said Lollie, teasingly, and then the bell called them to the schoolroom.

Soon after they all trooped to a classroom for the Geometry lesson. As he passed the teacher’s desk, Tod Brown tripped against her platform, and nearly fell over on it.

“What a clumsy boy!” exclaimed Miss Partland, frowning, and indeed the stumble was an awkward one. Small wonder, as it was done entirely on purpose!

Tod straightened himself up, made a nice, boyish bow, and said, “Please excuse me, Miss Partland. Oh, don’t feel alarmed, I’m not hurt.”

“And I’m not alarmed, you silly boy! I am annoyed at you, not sorry for you.”

“Yes’m. But, Miss Partland, you’re so white. Why, you look quite ill! Mayn’t I get you a glass of water?”

“Go to your seat!” Miss Partland turned scarlet, both from irritation at Tod’s speech, and a sudden nervous fear for herself.

Tod went to his place, and when it was Tad’s turn to go to the blackboard, he paused a moment, and looked straight into the teacher’s face. “Why, Miss Partland,” he whispered to her, “don’t you feel well? You look awful queer!”

“Go to the board,” she said, but she was evidently disturbed at his remark.

Tad went obediently, and did his work well, then, as he returned to his seat, he gave Miss Partland a long, searching look, and gravely shook his head. The other pupils saw him, and saw, too, that the teacher looked worried. The joke was working. Surely, she would not stay to-night to keep anybody in.

Next was Dotty’s turn. She went toward the blackboard, but on the way, she stopped in front of Miss Partland, and looked at her. Then, with an anxious look on her face, she stepped up on the platform, and whispering in the teacher’s ear, said: “If you’re not feeling well, Miss Partland, why don’t you go to the rest room for a while?”

“I’m perfectly well, child, what’s the matter with you?”

“You don’t look so,” said Dotty, shaking her head, and looking back at her victim, as she moved slowly to the board.

Several others did similarly; some not commenting on the teacher’s looks, but merely staring at her, and then looking away quickly.

Dolly Fayre had not noticed much of the whole performance, for she was behind with her lesson, and was struggling with a refractory problem, hoping to get it done before she had to go to the blackboard to demonstrate it.

And so, when she rose from her seat, she was surprised and shocked to see how alarmed Miss Partland looked. Indeed the poor lady was all upset with bewilderment at the observations made by her pupils. She had begun to think there must be something serious and noticeable the matter with her. She was trembling with nervous apprehension, and was on the verge of tears. And so, Dolly, who had forgotten Tod’s joke, said, most honestly, “Why, what is the matter, Miss Partland? You look awfully ill!”

The other pupils, hearing this, chuckled silently, thinking what a good little actress Dolly was.

But to Miss Partland it was the last straw.

“I am ill,” she cried out; “very ill. Help me, Dolly, to the rest room.”

Leaning on the shoulder of Dolly, who was pretty well frightened, Miss Partland stumbled along to the rest room,—a place provided for any one suddenly indisposed.

Dolly assisted her teacher to lie down on a couch, and dipping her handkerchief in cold water, held it to her forehead.

“Let me call somebody,” said Dolly. “I don’t know what I ought to do.”

“No, I feel better now,” said Miss Partland. “But I can’t go back to the classroom. I think I must go home. You may go to Mr. Macintosh, Dolly, and tell him I went home, ill.”

“Yes, Miss Partland,” replied Dolly, and then it suddenly came to her, that this was the result of Tod’s joke! “Were you ill this morning?” she asked.

“No, not in the slightest. It is a sudden attack of some sort. Perhaps I shall die!”

“Oh, no. You’ll be all right in an hour or so. What sort of pain do you feel, Miss Partland?”

“Not any definite pain. But queer all over, as if some illness were impending.”

I do believe, thought Dolly to herself, that it’s all the fault of those horrid boys, telling her she looked ill! And then she suddenly remembered that she herself had told Miss Partland so, too, and very emphatically. But she had told her in earnest, while the others had been carrying out their jest.

However, her comment was just the same as theirs, and doubtless helped to produce this effect. She wondered what to do. At first, she thought she would tell the whole story, and let the boys and girls take the consequences of their ill-timed joke. Then, she feared it might so enrage Miss Partland to know of it, that it would make her worse.

She decided not to tell at present, anyway, and she helped the teacher on with her hat and coat, and went with her to the door.

“Tell Mr. Macintosh I am quite ill,” she said as she went away. And Dolly went to the Principal’s room to do her bidding.

“Did Miss Partland say what the trouble was?” asked the surprised man. “Is she subject to these attacks?”

“She didn’t say, Mr. Macintosh, and I have never known her to be ill before. I think she will be all right, to-morrow.”

“You seem to know a great deal for a miss of your age! Have you had much experience with heart attacks?”

“I didn’t say it was a heart attack,” said poor Dolly, torn by her knowledge of what had really caused the trouble.

“It must have been, from what you say. That’s what I mean, you are too young and inexperienced to attend alone on a suffering victim of heart disease. Why didn’t you call some help?”

“I did want to, sir, but Miss Partland wouldn’t let me.”

“You may go. Return to the class and tell them they are dismissed. Let them all go to their next recitation at the proper time.”

“Yes, Mr. Macintosh.”

“Stop a minute.” Dolly turned. “Do you know anything more about this affair than you have told me?”

Dolly hesitated. What should she do? She did know more about it; she knew of the joke the boys had made up, and she felt almost sure that it was owing to this foolish jest that Miss Partland had imagined she felt ill so vividly, that at last she really did feel so. And yet, if Dolly “peached” on the boys, she well knew what they would think of her! It was a hard position. But, she thought quickly, it couldn’t help Miss Partland to tell of the joke now, and then again the illness might not have been caused by the joke after all, Dolly had been so engrossed with her difficult problem that she had not seen the successive boys and girls look at Miss Partland with such evident sympathy, anxiety and even consternation.

Her hesitation naturally made the Principal think she was withholding some information of importance, and he said so.

“No, Mr. Macintosh,” said Dolly, firmly; “I do not feel sure that I am. The only thing I know, is not positively connected with Miss Partland’s illness, although it may be. But as I am not sure, I am not justified in even speaking of it to you.”

The Principal looked at her attentively. “You’re a queer child,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” replied Dolly, thoughtfully. “But I’m trying to see what is my duty, and I can’t say anything till I find out.”

“At any rate, you’re an honest little girl, and I don’t believe you know anything that you really ought to tell, or you’d tell it.”

“Oh, thank you, sir. That’s just it. I don’t think I ought to, or I would.”

Dismissed from the room, Dolly returned to the class and told them the lesson would not be resumed that day, as Miss Partland had gone home ill. She looked reproachfully at the boys who had been ring-leaders in the “joke” and at Celia Ferris, too, who had also been a party to it.

But as there were many in the class who knew nothing about it, no word was said then and there, nor could there be until after school.

Then Dolly told what had happened. “And to think,” she concluded, “that Miss Partland was not ill at all, but so many remarks on her looking poorly, made her think she was,—and then—she was!”

“Pooh, nonsense!” said Lollie Henry; “you can’t make a lady ill by telling her she doesn’t look quite up to the mark.”

“Yes, you can,” declared Dolly. “It’s what they call auto-suggestion, or something. Just the same way, if you tell anybody they look well, why, then they get well. I’ve heard Mother talk about it.”

“Well, then,” said Tod Brown, “all we’ve got to do, is to go around to Miss Partland’s house and tell her she’s looking as blooming as a peach!”

“Sure!” said Tad. “That’s dead easy. Come on.”

“No,” said Dolly, “you can’t rush off like that! You’d probably make her worse.”

“Well, what does she want, then?”

“Oh, Tad, you’re so silly!” and Dolly couldn’t help laughing at him.

“I think you’re silly, Dolly,” said Celia. “I don’t believe it was our joke that upset her, at all. I believe she’d been sick anyway.”

“No, she wouldn’t. She said she was perfectly well this morning. You know, Celia, that it was your speeches, one after another, that scared her into thinking she was ill. And it was enough to, too! Why, I wasn’t noticing at the time, I was studying, but Dot told me afterward, how you all told her she looked so terrible, and you pretended to be scared to death!”

“Well, you said the same thing to her!”

“Yes, but I meant it! By the time I went up to the board, you had all frightened her so, she was white and shaky-looking. I was sure she was going to faint.”

“Yes, Dolly was in earnest,” said Dotty. “If we did any harm, Doll can’t be included. When she said that to Miss Partland, it was true. When we said it, it wasn’t.”

“Oh, I’m not sticking myself up,” began Dolly. “And I’m not blaming the rest of you. I think it was a mean joke, but never mind that now. What I’m thinking of is what we ought to do. Seems if we ought to set matters right somehow.”

“I don’t think so,” said Celia. “It’s always better to let well enough alone, my mother says. I bet that by to-morrow morning, Miss Partland will be all right and will have forgotten all about this foolishness.”

“I bet she will too,” said Lollie. “Say, Dolly, don’t worry over it. It wasn’t your fault anyway. And I don’t believe it will make old Party really ill. It couldn’t. And it may make her more sweet-tempered if she thinks she’s subject to—what d’y’ call em?—heart attacks.”

“How do you know it was a heart attack?” demanded Dolly.

“I heard Mr. Macintosh tell another teacher that Miss Party had gone home because she had a heart attack in the classroom.”

“I don’t believe it was her heart at all,” said Dolly slowly. “Why should any one think so? It was only nervousness, caused by your foolish trick. I’m sorry for Miss Partland. If she isn’t all right to-morrow, I’m going to tell her the whole story.”

“Meany!” cried Celia; “it’s awful mean to tell tales.”

“Not so mean as to play tricks!” retorted Dolly, and then she and Dotty had reached their homes, and went in, while the others went on their way.

CHAPTER III
AN AFTERNOON CALL

Dolly worried a good deal over her teacher’s illness, and when Miss Partland was not at school the next day, she decided to go to see her, on the way home. The boys tried to dissuade her, but Dolly was firm.

“No use trying to steer off Dolly Fayre, if she’s made up her mind,” said Lollie Henry. “If she has a bee in her bonnet, she sticks to it like a puppy to a root.”

They all laughed at this, but Dotty said, earnestly, “Don’t go, Doll; you’ll have to tell on the boys and girls, and that will be awful mean.”

“No, I won’t. I’ve a plan of my own, and I won’t say a word about your playing a joke, or anything about any of you. But I do think, Lollie, and you Tad and Tod too, that it’s a mean, horrid thing to play practical jokes, and I think you ought to be told on,—but I won’t tell on you.”

“Ah, now, Dolly, Towhead Dolly, don’t be hard on us,” said Tad, in such a wheedlesome way that Dolly had to laugh. “We didn’t mean any real harm, and she has been awfully cross to us, and we’re not such angels of goodness as you are—”

“I’m not an angel of goodness, Tad Brown, and I’ll thank you to stop making fun of me! But I do believe in being decent to a teacher, even if she is strict in her rules.”

“Come on, Dolly,” said Dotty, as they neared the street where Miss Partland lived; “if you’re going, I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, ho!” jeered Lollie, “two little angels of goodness, little white angels, with shiny wings! Well, fly into old Party’s house, and see what’s the matter with her,—mumps or measles!”

The two girls went to the house, and were invited to go up to the teacher’s room.

They found Miss Partland, sitting in an easy chair, looking disconsolate indeed.

“How do you do, girls?” she said, listlessly; “won’t you sit down?”

The two D’s sat down, and Dolly said, at once, “Oh, I’m glad to see you looking so much better, Miss Partland! You’re not really ill, are you?”

“I don’t know, Dolly,” and the poor lady looked sadly distraught. She was not an interesting invalid in appearance. She had on an old grey flannel wrapper, and her hair was untidy. A bowl of broth, cold,—and one or two bottles were on her table, and the whole room had an unkempt, uncared-for air. “You see,” she went on, “I didn’t know I had heart trouble, and it worries me terribly.”

“Do you know it yet?” asked Dolly. “Have you had a doctor?”

“I’ve sent for him, but he hasn’t come yet. But several people have called or telephoned, and they all speak of my heart attack, so I think it must have been that.”

Dotty looked very serious, and blushed a little as she realised to what a pass their thoughtless joke had brought the teacher.

“Miss Partland,” Dolly went on. “I don’t believe it was your heart, or you’d be sicker now. You don’t feel bad, do you?”

“N-no,—I guess not,—I can hardly tell.”

“Well, you look real well to me—”

“Oh, do I? I’m glad to hear you say so. I thought myself, if it were anything serious, I’d feel worse than I do. I haven’t any real pain, you know.”

“That’s good; and I believe all you want is to brace up and forget it. Forget that little bother of yesterday, I mean.”

“Say, Miss Partland,” broke in Dotty, “won’t you let me do your hair in a new way that I’ve just tried on mother’s? I often do her hair for her, and she says it rests her a lot. And this new way—”

“Mercy, child, I never had anybody touch my hair in my life!”

“Then you don’t know how it helps. Just let me try. Where’s your comb? and hairpins? Oh, here they are. No, don’t face the mirror, I want you to be surprised.”

Dotty bustled around, and almost before Miss Partland knew it, she was having her hair dressed by the skilful little hands. The hair was not long or luxurious, but it was of fine texture, and when released from the tight little knob it was wound in, proved slightly wavy. Dot made the most of it, and drawing it up in a soft French twist, she puffed it out at the sides, and made a most becoming and transforming coiffure.

“There!” she said, “you’re real pretty now, and I’d like to see anybody say you look sick!”

Miss Partland looked in the glass and was astounded. The unwonted performance had brought the colour to her cheeks, and interest to her eyes, and when she saw the whole effect in the mirror, she fairly beamed with delight.

“Now, haven’t you a nicer kimono, or dressing gown? This isn’t very pretty for afternoon, and the doctor coming and all.”

Miss Partland looked amazed. “I never thought about it,” she said; “I haven’t any other,—or, that is—yes, I have one my sister sent me for Christmas, but I’ve never worn it. It’s too nice.”

“Mayn’t we see it?”

Miss Partland went to the closet and brought out a big box. From it she took a beautiful Japanese kimono of pale blue silk, embroidered with pink chrysanthemums.

“There,” she said, “you see I couldn’t wear that.”

“Why not?” cried Dolly. “It’s lovely! And it just suits your blonde colouring.”

This was stretching the point a little, for Miss Partland’s blondeness was of the type known as ash, and her faded complexion and dull light blue eyes hardly deserved the name of colouring.

But Dolly was sincere, and she meant to make the most of what little natural vanity the lady possessed.

“Yes, indeed,” chimed in Dotty. “That’s too pretty to be buried in an old dark closet! Put it on, quick, before the doctor gets here!”

A little bewildered, Miss Partland hurried into the robe, and the girls were astounded at the becomingness of it.

“Well, well!” cried Dotty. “Try our plans, and you will be surprised at the result! Why, Miss Partland, you’re a hummer! A regular peach! Isn’t she, Doll?”

“Yes-sir-ee!” And Dolly patted the blue silk approvingly. Then they wound the blue sash, that belonged to the robe, round about her, and tucked the ends in in Chinese fashion.

“You must put that on every day after school,” said Dotty, “it’s lovely on you.”

“But it’s too nice. I never dreamed of wearing it—”

“No matter, just you wear it, and when it’s worn out I ’spect sister’ll give you another.”

“Of course she would, she’s awfully fond of me.”

“She’d be fonder, if she could see you now. Clothes make a heap of difference,” and Dotty nodded her head sagely. “My goodness, here’s the doctor! I hear his automobile stopping. Yes, it is,” as she peeped from the window. “Shall we go home, Miss Partland?”

“No, just go in the next room, and after he’s gone, I’ll tell you what he said.”

“Oh, thank you, I do want to know,” said Dolly, and the two ran into the next room and shut the door.

A little time later, Miss Partland opened the door and summoned them. She was smiling and so happy looking that she was almost pretty,—a word rarely used in connection with the Geometry teacher.

“Come in, girls,” she said. “The doctor says I have no heart trouble of any sort, and that I am as sound as a dollar!”

“Did he say what ailed you yesterday?”

“He said I was probably nervous over some trifle, but he said it had left no trace, for my nerves are all right now. And, what do you think? He said that as I had enough interest in life to take some pains with my toilette, I was in no danger of nervous prostration! And just think! Before you two came in, I was wondering whether I’d better go to a sanitarium!”

“Oh, Miss Partland! Not really!”

“Yes, really. I thought my whole nervous system was shattered. Everybody said I looked so ill, and they gave me such commiserating glances—”

“Well, they won’t any more,” interrupted Dotty, who was cut to the soul by these remarks. Well she knew whose suggestions and whose glances had brought about the sad state of things.

“And now,” said practical Dolly, “I’m going to straighten up this room a little. You may have more callers.”

She whisked away the bowl and bottles into the bathroom. She straightened the shades, dusted a little, and with a few deft touches here and there, she made the room tidy and neat. She found a glass vase which she washed, and setting it on the table, said, “We must go now, Miss Partland, but I’m going to send you a few flowers, and I want you to put them in this vase, and set them right here on the table, will you?”

“Indeed I will, you dear child. You’re dear little girls, both, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for your pleasant call. I can’t promise to wear this elaborate gown every day, but I will buy myself one that is more presentable than the one I had on when you came.”

“And have it pretty, Miss Partland,” begged Dolly; “pretty things keep you from getting sick.”

“I wonder if they do, you little rascal; how do you know?”

“Well, maybe they wouldn’t keep you from getting chicken pox, they didn’t me, but I’m just sure they’re good for nervous prostration.”

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” and Miss Partland smiled brightly as she bade the girls good-bye.

“Now I’m going to get her some flowers,” said Dolly as they reached the street. “I haven’t much left of my allowance, but I can get her half a dozen carnations or two roses. Which would you, Dot?”

“Carnations, I guess. They last longer. I’m going to get her a couple of fruits. Say, a grapefruit and an orange, how’s that?”

“Fine! I’m glad you thought of it. It’ll cheer her a lot. I say, Dot, we did do her some good.”

“I should say we did! But it was all your doing, I just went along.”

“Nonsense! You did as much as I did. Why, I don’t know how you ever thought of fussing up her hair! It was just the thing, but it never would have occurred to me.”

“I dunno myself how I happened to think of it. But her old head looked so frowsy and untidy, I wanted to see if it would make a difference. And it did!”

“I should say so! Here’s the fruit store. Going in?”

“Yes, come on.”

They went in, and Dotty made a judicious selection of two oranges and a bunch of white grapes, as they were not sure Miss Partland cared for grapefruit.

“And if any one doesn’t like it,” said Dotty, making a wry face, “they don’t like it all over! I can’t abide it!”

“I love it,” returned Dolly, “but as you say, Dot, if people don’t like it they don’t. Grapes are much safer. Now, come on to the flower shop.”

A half dozen carnations of an exquisite shade were available for the money Dolly had, and it was with great satisfaction she saw them put in a box and sent off at once to Miss Partland.

“I say, Dolly, you’re an awful trump!” declared Dotty, as they walked along. “I never should have thought of going to fix things up with old Party. And now, I’m awful glad we did. Why is it, you always have these good thinks and I never do?”

“I dunno. Sometimes it makes me mad though when the boys call me goody-goody. And Celia Ferris said I was a spoilsport. That isn’t very nice to be called, Dot, is it?”

“No; but you always come out all right. You see, I’m full of the dickens, and when the boys want me to cut up jinks, I go into it head over heels without thinking. You hesitate, and think it over and then you do the right thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe I am an old Primmy, as Tad calls me. Hello, here’s Tad now.”

Tad Brown met them as he came flying round a corner, closely followed by his twin brother Tod.

“Hello, girls,” Tad called out. “Been to old Party’s? How is she?”

“She’s all right,” and Dolly laughed gaily. “She’s had the doctor and he says her heart’s sound as a dollar. So you see your old joke didn’t hurt her, after all.”

“But it would have,” put in Dotty, “if Doll hadn’t gone there and chirked her up, and told her she wasn’t sick at all.”

“You went too,” said Dolly, laughing.

“Oh, ’course. Whithersoever thou goest, theresoever will I also went. And say, boys, you’ve got to be gooder’n pie to-morrow, and every day, to make up to old Party for your badness. She’s a funny old thing, but she’s nice, and since I’ve seen her at home, I feel different toward her, more intimate like and sorry for her.”

“All right,” said Tad, heartily. “I’m ready to be good. I’m pretty well ashamed of that old joke business, since it turned out so badly.”

“Me, too,” and Tod shook his head. “I thought it was funny at first, but it didn’t pan out well. I’ll never play another joke on anybody! any way, not till the next time. Going to the High School Dance, girls?”

“Yes, indeedy!” and Dolly’s eyes glistened. “Won’t it be fun? It is the first time I’ve ever been to an evening party.”

“Go with me?” and Tod paused in the street, and swept his best dancing-school bow.

“Gracious, I don’t know,” said Dolly, overcome at this sudden grown-upness. “I don’t believe mother will let me go with a boy.”

“Oh, yes, she will,” said Tad. “Just to a school dance. You go with Tod, Dolly; and, Dot, you go with me, and then we’ll be all in the same boat.”

“I’d like to,” said Dolly, “but I’m sure mother won’t let me. What do you think, Dot?”

“I think my mother will muchly object at first, but I think I can coax her into it.”

“Why, all the girls will go with the boys,” said Tad eagerly. “They always do. You see our bunch has never been in High School before, and when we’re in Rome we must do as the Turkeys do.”

“Who is going with who else, that you know of?”

“Oh, Celia Ferris is going with Lollie Henry, and Joe Collins—”

“Well, what about Joe Collins?” asked Dolly.

“Oh, nothin’.”

“Yes, there is, too; what made you stop short?”

“Well, if you must know, he said he was going to ask you.”

“Oh, do you boys talk it all over,—about who you’ll take, I mean?”

“Sure we do,” said Tod, grinning. “I gave Joe my new knife if he’d let me ask you first.”

“You didn’t!” and Dolly looked shocked.

“No, of course he didn’t!” said Tad. “Don’t you let him fool you, Dolly.”

The quartette had walked along to the Fayres’ house, and the boys wanted to go in and see how the house was coming on. But Dolly wouldn’t allow this, as she said she must study her lessons.

“And you must all go home and study,” she said shaking her golden head at them. “I want you to have good lessons to-morrow, and cheer Miss Party up.”

“I’ll tell her she’s looking blooming,” said Tad, laughing over his shoulder as he went away.

“I’ll tell her she’s a perfect peach!” declared Tod, and then with gay good-byes they parted.

CHAPTER IV
THE HIGH SCHOOL DANCE

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Fayre, doubtfully, when Dolly asked her about going to the dance with Tod. “You’re not old enough to go to an evening party with an escort. Why, you’re only fifteen.”

“But this is a school party, Mumsie, and it seems different.”

“I think so, too,” said Trudy. “I went to High School parties with the boys when I was fifteen,—or sixteen, anyway.”

“But sixteen seems so much older. Why, Dolly’s wearing hair-ribbons yet.”

“Well,” and Trudy laughed, “they’ll allow hair ribbons at a High School dance. Why, Mother, it’s part of the course, in a way. It teaches the boys and girls how to behave in Society—”

“Dolly can learn that at home.”

“Not unless she has lots of parties and dances, I mean party manners.”

“Well, I’m willing she should go, but I don’t like her going with Tod Brown.”

“Why, he’s an awfully nice boy. The Browns are among the best people of Berwick.”

“I know that, Trudy,—Tod’s all right. But I think your father ought to take Dolly and go after her.”

“Oh, Mother, they don’t do that nowadays. But Dolly can go in our car, and stop for Tod, that would be all right. And Thomas could go and bring them home.”

“That seems to me a very queer way to do. But we’ll see what your father says about it.”

Mr. Fayre, appealed to, was helpless.

“Why, bless my soul, Edith,” he said to his wife, “I don’t know about such things. When I was a boy, we went home with the girls, of course. But nowadays I suppose the ways are different. You women folks ought to be able to settle that question.”

“They are, Daddy,” said Dolly, sidling up to him, and patting his hand. “But I’d just as lieve you’d take me, if you want the bother of it.”

“I don’t mind the bother, Chickadee, if it’s necessary. But when you do get old enough to let the Brownies take you to parties, I shan’t be sorry!”

“Well, now, I’ll settle the matter,” said Mrs. Fayre, smiling at her younger daughter. “This time, let Daddy take you, and the next time we’ll see about it. You are growing up, I suppose, and, too, one has to do as other people do. But this first dance, I’d rather you went with father.”

“All right, Mumsie, I’m willing. I don’t s’pose it’ll be much of a party anyhow. Just the school girls and boys, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Trudy. “When I went to High, dances were pretty nice affairs. What shall she wear?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Fayre. “I’ll have to ask the mothers of some of the other girls how much they dress. A white frock, I should think, with some flowers or ribbons.”

Dolly was satisfied with the outcome of the discussion, but quite another scene was being enacted next door.

“I’m going to the High School Dance with Tad Brown,” Dotty announced at the dinner table.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” returned her mother. “A child of your age going out in the evening with a boy escort! Ridiculous!”

“But I am,” went on Dotty, decidedly. “Dolly’s going with Tod, and I’m going with Tad.”

“Did Dolly’s mother say she might?”

“I dunno. But we’re going. And I want a new red chiffon to wear.”

“Red chiffon! You’d look fine in red chiffon at your age! Now, be sensible, Dotty, if you go to that dance, you must let your father take you, and you must wear one of your white summer dresses.”

“But, Mother, all the girls are going to have new dresses. Celia Ferris is going to have a white satin—”

“A white satin! for a High School girl! How absurd!”

“Well, I don’t want white satin, but I do want a new dress. Can’t I have it, Father?”

“Now, now, Dotty, don’t tease.”

“But, Father, can’t I?”

“Why, I should think you might. You’re a nice little girl. But, of course, it must be as mother says.”

“Say, yes, Mother, do say yes. Won’t you, Mother? Won’t you? Aunt Clara, you beg her to, won’t you? Won’t you, Aunt Clara?”

“Good gracious, child, stop teasing,” and Mr. Rose glowered at Dotty so very fiercely, that she knew he was not in earnest.

“Stop teasing, Dotty,” said Genie, her little sister. “You know very well that teasing won’t get what you want.”

Genie looked so comical, as she shook her fat little forefinger at Dotty, that they all laughed.

“Cry, that’s the bestest way,” Genie went on. “If you cry hard enough, you’re sure to get it.”

“That’s all right for little kiddies like you, Gene, but big girls don’t cry. They just say what they want, and then if their parents are nice, loving, affectionate, good-hearted people, I should think they would get their wishes.”

“Well put, Dottikins,” cried her father. “I guess, Mother, the little girl will have to have her new furbelows. Of course, you’ll get something suitable. Say, a nice blue gingham.”

Dotty smiled absently at this mild jest, and went on, her first point gained, to her second.

“And I want to go with Tad. I don’t want to go with father, like a baby. All the girls are going with the boys. Celia Ferris is going with Lollie Henry—”

“That question must wait, Dorothy,” and when Mrs. Rose used that name, Dotty knew she was very much in earnest. “I’m comparatively new in Berwick, and I must find out what the other mothers think about it before I decide. Now, stop teasing; after I confer with some of the ladies I’ll decide. I don’t think much of Celia Ferris as a model. And I’m by no means sure Dolly’s mother will let her go with Tod. So you must wait and see.”

Dotty knew from her mother’s manner there was no use teasing any more, so she turned her attention back to her frock.

“Well, if it can’t be red chiffon, Mother, can’t it be red organdie?”

“We’ll see about it. If you’re so bent on a red dress, perhaps we can hunt one up.” Mrs. Fayre smiled at her impetuous daughter, and Dotty felt sure she had secured a red gown, at least.

The two neighbouring mothers talked matters over, and it was finally decided that the girls should not be allowed to go to the party with the boys this time, but perhaps they might later in the season. For the dances were occasional, and sometimes there were three or four during the winter. It was arranged that Mr. Fayre should take the two D’s and that Mr. Rose should go to bring them home, after the dance was over.

But new dresses were allowed, and Dotty’s of red organdie, and Dolly’s of white organdie and blue ribbons, were both pretty and appropriate.

They had new party cloaks, too, the first they had ever owned, and it made them feel exceedingly grown-up to have them flung round their shoulders. Dolly’s was of light blue cashmere, edged with swansdown, and Dotty’s was of scarlet cloth, bordered with a quilling of black satin. Hats were out of the question, and Mrs. Fayre presented each of the girls with a little lace scarf to wear on her head.

Very pretty they looked, as, all equipped at last, they got into the Fayre car, and rolled away. Mr. Fayre gave them alternately, compliments on their appearance and advice as to how to behave.

“Why, Dads,” said Dolly, laughing, “any one would think we had never been out before.”

“Well, you haven’t; that is, to a real evening party.”

“No, but we went to a dance down at Surfwood, it can’t be so very different.”

“No, I suppose not,” rejoined Mr. Fayre, and then they were at the School.

The dance was held in the big Assembly Room, and the Committee had decorated it with flowers and palms, so that it had a gala air indeed. The girls went to the cloak room, and as they emerged, the Brown twins met them. Such dressy Brown twins! And indeed, everybody looked different from the schoolmates they were.

“Hello,” said Tad; “come on, you’re late. The girls are getting their cards all filled up. Here are yours.”

The two D’s took their Dance Programmes a little shyly. They had never had them before, for this was their first real Dance Party.

“S’pose nobody asks me to dance!” said Dotty, in a sudden fit of shyness.

“Oh, nonsense!” cried Dolly, “everybody’ll ask you.”

“You should worry!” exclaimed Tad, looking at his pretty partner with an appreciative eye. “Here, give me both your cards. I want a lot of dances that I can manage. I’m not much on the fancy steps.”

He took the cards and began scribbling his initials.

“Stop!” said Dotty, laughing; “you’re taking too many, Tad.”

“Oh, ho! and you were so ’fraid nobody’d ask you! You’re a sly-boots.”

“Well, I want a few left, if anybody should ask,” and even as she spoke, several of the boys came clustering round her and Dolly, and very soon their cards were well filled.

Then the fun began. The two D’s were both good dancers, and as nearly all the young people went to the Berwick Dancing School, they had plenty of good partners. After each dance they walked about the room or sat and chatted.

To Dolly’s surprise there were a great many strangers present. For, contrary to the ideas of the elder Fayres and Roses, nearly all the girls did come with boy escorts, and as many girls were not invited by the schoolboys, they asked friends from out of town. There were also girl guests from neighbouring cities, and altogether, the affair was quite large.

Celia Ferris had her white satin, but it was veiled with soft white tulle, and made a very pretty, girlish dance-frock.

Celia was chummy with the two D’s, but she had begun to feel a little jealous of them, for they were exceedingly popular, and received a great deal of attention. However, she was pleasant-mannered, and spoke cordially with them whenever they met.

After a time Dolly noticed a girl, who seemed to be a wall-flower. She was a nice-looking and well-dressed girl, but she danced very seldom, and most of the time sat discontentedly looking at the others.

There were some other wall-flowers, as is always the case, but none were so frequently left partnerless as this particular girl.

“Who is she?” asked Dolly of Lollie Henry, with whom she happened to be dancing.

“Oh, that’s Bernice Forbes. She’s a muff.”

“Don’t be rude, Lollie. What do you mean,—a muff?”

“Nothing, only she hasn’t any go to her,—any life, any vim, you know.”

“But she might, if she were asked to dance oftener. Have you asked her?”

“Not much! I don’t dance with B. Forbes, when I can get anybody else.”

“That isn’t very nice of you,” and Dolly looked reproachfully at her partner. “Won’t you ask her once, just to please me?”

“I’d do a lot to please you, sister, but B. F. is a little too much. Hello, they’re going to supper. Who’d you come with? Tad or Tod?”

“I’m supposed to have come with Tod. But really my father brought me.”

“I know. It’s all the same. The Brownies picked you up after you got there,—you and Dot. And here comes Tod after you, I must fly to seek my own special.”

Lollie went off, and Tod escorted Dolly to the supper room. The feast was not grand, as High School affairs are limited, but everybody enjoyed it. The D’s and the Browns found a place in a pleasant alcove, and were joined by Celia Ferris and the Rawlins girls and a lot more of their particular friends.

Dolly noticed Bernice Forbes, sitting apart from the rest. With her was a boy Dolly did not know.

“Who is he?” she whispered to Joe Collins.

“Dunno. Some chap the Forbes girl brought. Of course no Berwick boy would ask her.”

“Why not?”

“Stick. Can’t say boo to a goose!”

“Is that the reason the Berwick boys don’t want to talk to her?” asked Dolly mischievously, and Joe laughed.

“Honest, Dolly, she’s fearful. Just a lump, you know. But don’t you know her?”

“Never did till I went to High. She was at another Grammar School from the one I went to. She dresses well.”

“She ought to. Her father is the richest man in Berwick.”

“Oh, is she the daughter of Mr. Forbes, the railroad man?”

“She sure is. Now do you know her better?”

“I should say so! Why, my father is in one of the offices of Mr. Forbes’ company.”

“That so? Well, steer clear of the fair Bernice, believe me!”

And then the sandwiches and ice cream and cakes arrived, and the healthy young appetites did full justice to them.

“Tell us all about your new house, Dotty,” somebody was saying.

“ ’Tisn’t mine any more than Dolly Fayre’s. It belongs to us jointly and severally, as my father says.”

“When will it be finished?”

“In a couple of weeks now, I guess. We’re going to have a Hallowe’en party to open it. I hope you’ll all come.”

“Is this the invitation?” said Clayton Rawlins; “if so, I accept.”

“Oh, no, this isn’t the regular invitation. That will come later.”

“You can’t have a very big party,” said Celia. “The house won’t hold very many.”

“It’s going to be a mixed-around party,” explained Dolly. “Some of it will be in our two own houses and some in Treasure House.”

“Is that what you call it? How pretty,” and Grace Rawlins smiled at Dolly.

“Yes, Treasure House, because it’s our treasure and because we’re going to keep our treasures in it. Oh, it’s going to be the greatest fun! You must all come over and see it. Don’t wait for Hallowe’en. Come any time.”

After supper there were a few more dances before going home time.

With some interest, Dolly watched the Forbes girl. She danced a few times with the boy with her and the rest of the time she sat alone.

Reggie Stuart came to Dolly for a dance.

“Say, Reg,” she said, “won’t you let me off of this, and go and dance it with Bernice Forbes?”

“Will I! Not! What’s the matter, don’t you want to dance with me?”

“Yes, of course. It isn’t that, but—but she looks lonely.”

“Good work! She ought to look lonely. It’s her own fault, Dolly.”

“Her own fault, how?”

“Oh, she doesn’t try to be gay and perky and smiley and laughy,—like,—well, like you are. But if you don’t want me for a partner—”

“Oh, ridiculous, Reg! Of course I do. Come on.”

They danced away, and for that night at least, Dolly gave up trying to get the boys to dance with Bernice. Reginald was not the first one she had asked, nor the second; but one and all they had refused.

CHAPTER V
TREASURE HOUSE

At last the day came when Treasure House was finished. Painted, papered, furnished, it now lacked only the finishing touches that the eager hands of the Two D’s were ready to give.

A Saturday was to be devoted to this fascinating work, and bright and early, Dotty and Dolly were signalling each other from their bedroom windows that the time had arrived.

Rather slim and very hurried were their breakfasts, and very abstracted and absentminded their conversation.

“Dot,” said Mr. Rose, “do have a little scrap more of this nice bacon.”

Dotty looked at her father, unseeing, and letting her gaze rove to her mother, she said, “Which centrepiece would you put on the table first, Aunt Clara’s or the one Trudy made?”

“Use mine first,” spoke up Aunt Clara, “for Trudy’s is much handsomer, and you’d better keep it for a party occasion.”

“That’s so,” and Dotty nodded her head.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rose had sat patiently, serving fork and spoon held over the dish of curly, crisp bacon and golden eggs. “I asked you a question, Dotty,” he said, in an injured tone.

Again Dotty gave him that blank stare. “And, Mother,” she went on, “if you’d just as lieve we’d have that blue Japanese table mat, for the Study table, I’ll take it over with me. When I—”

“Dorothy Rose,” said her father, with mock severity, “am I to hold this fork all day? Will you, or will you not, have some bacon?”

“What? Have what? Oh, Daddy, did you bring the screw hooks home last night? You didn’t forget to get them, did you?”

“Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!” shouted Mr. Rose. “I said bacon!”

“And the doormat,—you promised to order the doormat, Father—”

“Bacon!”

“The fire sets came—”

“Bacon!”

“Oh, how you made me jump! No, I don’t want any bacon, I had some—I think. Anyway, I’m through breakfast, aren’t you, Dad? Do hurry up. I want you to go over with me—oh, there’s Doll!”

Dolly came in, her arms full of things for the house.

“I didn’t want to go in without you, Dot,” she said. “Goodness, aren’t you through breakfast yet? I couldn’t eat a thing, hardly.”

“Sit down here, and have some bacon, Dolly,” said Mr. Rose, hospitably.

“Dad, if you say bacon again, I’ll just perfectly fly! Dolly doesn’t want any, do you, Doll?”

“No, ’course not! I mean no, thank you, Mr. Rose. Oh, we can’t wait another minute. Come on, Dot!”

Dotty grabbed up some things she had ready to take, and the two flew out of the side door and over to Treasure House.

It was a gorgeous morning in late October, and as the house faced the south, the sun was already flooding the front piazza of their new domain. Each girl had a key, and as they went up the steps, Dolly began hunting in her coat pocket for hers.

“Old Slowy!” cried Dotty, and, her own key already in her hand, she snapped it into the lock, and threw open the door.

“Will you walk into my parlour, said the flyder to the spy!” and with a flourish she stood aside for Dolly to enter.

“No, we must go in together. Why, Dot, this first entrance ought to be a rite, a—a ceremonial, you know.”

“Ceremonial, your grandmother! Come on in!” and grabbing Dolly’s arm, the two bounced in, spilling their parcels, and laughing so hard that there was small suggestion of ceremony.

They fell breathless, in the two easy chairs that stood either side of the fireplace, and just grinned at each other.

“The day’s come!” exclaimed Dotty; “we’re really here! Oh, Doll, can you believe it?”

“No, I simpully can’t! It’s too good to be true! Now, shall we light a fire, or fix things up first?”

“How far have you progressed?” asked a voice at the door, and Mr. Rose came in, smiling. “Want any help? I’ve half an hour to spare. Can I start a fire for you?”

“Oh, do, Dad! And show us just how, and then we can do it ourselves after this.”

“Pooh,” said Dolly, “I know how to make a fire,—I learned long ago. But it would be better to have Mr. Rose make the first one, and see if the chimney draws all right.”

Dolly looked up the flue with the air of a connoisseur on fireplaces, and Mr. Rose laughed good naturedly at her.

“The secret of a successful fire is plenty of paper and kindling-wood,” he said, as he twisted newspapers into hard rolls. Then he added light sticks and finally good-sized logs, and declared the fire was laid.

“Now the lighting of this, your first hearth fire, should be a ceremony,” he said.

“There, Dotty, I told you we ought to have a ceremony! Which of us will light it?”

“Both together, of course. Give us each a match, Dad.”

Mr. Rose gave each of the girls a match, and as they were about to strike them, he showed them where to touch the protruding ends of paper, which he had purposely arranged.

“Now,” he said, “One, Two, Three, Go! May joy attend all who surround the Hearthstone fires of Treasure House!”

The matches blazed, caught the paper, ignited the kindling, and flames shot up with a glow and a crackle.

It was an exciting moment for the two girls. They fell into each other’s arms, and while Dotty was shouting “Hooray!” at the top of her lungs, the tears were rolling down Dolly’s cheeks.

“You Goosie!” cried Dotty. “What under the sun are you crying about?”

“ ’Cause I’m so happy. And anyway, it’s my own house, I’ve got a right to cry in it, if I want to.”

But she was smiling now, the tense moment had passed, and together they danced wildly round the room.

“I’ll have to be going,” said Mr. Rose, looking at his watch, “you two Apache Indians had better calm down and get to work. There’s a lot to be done, I’m thinking.”

“But we’ve got all our lives to do it in,” said Dolly, laughing. “There’s no hurry, and I must get my eyes used to it a little first.”

Mr. Rose went off, and the two girls stood looking about, as if they never could look enough.

And this is what they saw. The Study, flooded with the Autumn sunlight, and bright with the blazing fire. Walls hung with plain paper of a lovely greyish green, with a bordering frieze of foliage in darker shades. Windows curtained with green silk over lace bordered scrim. Two wide window-seats, at opposite sides of the room, cushioned in green, and provided with many soft, ample-sized green cushions. The woodwork was white, the low bookshelves were white, and the furniture was Mission.

The two desks had arrived, and were placed at the two ends of the room. Theoretically, the whole room was divided in halves, Dolly owning the side toward her home, and Dotty the side toward hers. Under the window seats were little cupboards for school books, and besides, there was a roomy coat-closet for each, with shelves and hooks.

A big table in the middle of the room held an electrolier, and each girl was to fill her side of the table with such books or bric-à-brac as she saw fit. Altogether, it was the cosiest, homiest, dearest room a girl ever had to study or play in, and it thoroughly satisfied the Two D’s.

“Now let’s gaze on the dining-room,” said Dolly. “I haven’t seen it since last night.”

Arms round each other, they went to the next room. That, of course, was a north room, and so it had been furnished in yellow. The yellow wallpaper, with a border of daffodils, was like sunshine, and the chairs and table were of yellow painted wood. The curtains were of thin yellow silk, and the glass door of the cupboard showed a set of yellow china. A big yellow bowl, of Chinese ware, had been Mrs. Fayre’s especial gift; though the parents and relatives had all contributed generously to the furnishings. Bob and Bert had sent gifts; one a clock and one a picture.

Their pictures were few, as yet, for the girls didn’t want the discarded ones in their home attics, and preferred to wait till time should bring some good ones as Christmas or birthday gifts.

“You see,” said Dolly, as they talked this over, “we don’t want to get it all finished at once, or we’ll have nothing to look forward to. Let’s do it slowly, by degrees, and get first, just what we have to have.”

“Yes,” agreed Dotty, “only I’m so impatient, I can’t wait to do things slowly. I wish I could just wave my hand, and everything would be finished!”

“Goosie! Well, let’s go to work, and do up what’s to be done right now. Mother’s coming over pretty soon, and I want her to see it looking nice. I’ll make the dining-room fire,—or don’t we need one?”

“Not yet, Doll. We’ll be flying round, working, and that will keep us warm. Let’s not light it till afternoon.”

“All right. Come on and gaze at the kitchen.”

The kitchenette was a dream in shining nickel and white enamel. Mr. Fayre was a busy man, and hadn’t the time to devote to the children that Mr. Rose could command, so he had insisted on making up by putting in the entire electrical outfit. There was provision for cooking, toasting, coffee-making, candy-making, and some contraptions of which the girls did not yet know the use.

A small, but complete kitchen cabinet contained everything the most fastidious housekeeper could desire, and a wall cupboard held a supply of neatly hemmed dish towels, dusters and such matters.

“Isn’t it great!” exclaimed Dolly. “That white enamelled sink is dainty enough for a fairy’s bath! And do observe this corn-popper!”

“And this glass lemon-squeezer! Let’s make some lemonade now!”

“Oh, not now! It’s just after breakfast.”

“Well, it’s eleven o’clock, just the same.”

“It is! Whew! we must fly round. Don’t talk about lemonade, Dot; let’s put our books on their shelves, and fix the mantel and table.”

“All right, say we do.”

A basket of trinkets from each house stood waiting, and the two unpacked and placed their treasures. Such absorbing work as it was! No very valuable things had been brought, lest light-fingered gentry should prowl round some dark night, but lots of pretty things were available.

“ ’Course we divide the mantel, same’s everything else,” observed Dolly, as she came, with a tiny ivory elephant and a larger teakwood one. “Let’s put Bert’s clock in the middle, and then each fix our own half. I’ve just got to have my two dearie efelunts here, and the brass candlestick Grandma gave me. There, I think that’s enough for my end.”

“Looks awful skinny. I’ve a lot of stuff for my half. See; this pair of vases, and this plaster cast of Dante, and this big white china cat, and this inkstand—”

“Oh, Dot, don’t put an inkstand up there! Put that on your desk.”

“Oh, it isn’t a using inkstand. It’s just a show one. Aunt Clara gave it to me last Christmas. See, it’s iridescent glass.”

“I know it is, but it looks like fury up there, and your end is too crowded, anyway.”

“Pooh, I think yours is too skimpy. Looks awful vacant, with nothing but two elephants and a candlestick!”

“But it’s right not to have such a lot of dinky doodaddles all over the place. Your end looks like a junk shop!”

But, imperturbably, Dotty added a big, pink-lined conch shell and a fussy beribboned calendar. “I like what I like, Dolly Fayre, and I’ve as much right to fill up my space as you have to waste yours. You might rent out a few square feet to me.”

“ ’Deed I won’t! Dot, that bunch of rubbish is fierce! All the girls will laugh at it.”

“Let ’em, I don’t care. I’ve had that shell ever since I was a tiny mite. It’s my oldest treasure.”

“Your old-fashionedest, you mean. Say, Dot, weed out half of those frights, and I’ll give you one of my candlesticks. They’d look fine at each end.”

“No-sir-ee! I insist on my rights, my whole rights and nothing but my rights! E pluribus unum, Erin go bragh!”

Dotty executed a species of war dance, and shook her fist defiantly at Dolly, who was standing off, admiring her end of the mantel and making wry faces at Dotty’s.

Suddenly Dolly broke into laughter. “We’ll have these scraps all the time, Dot, so I s’pose we may as well make up our minds to let each other do as we please.”

“I like your grammar, and I agree to your dic—dic—what do you call it?”

“Dictum?”

“Yes, dictum. Only you needn’t try to dictum me! We’re joint monarchs of all we survey, and we must let each other survey in our own way. I think my mantel layout is pretty fine. If you don’t I can’t help it.”

“No,” sighed Dolly, “and you can’t help having awful taste in decoration, either.”

“Taste is a matter of opinion, and I opine that my mantel looks as good as yours, only different.”

Then both girls grinned at each other, and the peace was unbroken. But the mantel did look funny!

“Now for our books. Thank goodness, we haven’t got to share our bookshelves, and we can fix the things as we like.”

“We did on the mantel,” said Dolly, laughing. “Well, my nonsense books go above, and my girls’ books below. ‘Alice’ first; then ‘Lear,’ and then the ‘Just so Stories.’ ”

“Well, of course, I’m doing mine different. I’m putting my highbrow books up top. Shakespeare first, and then—”

“Don’t say Milton! You know you’ll never read those things out here, or anywhere, except when you have to write themes on them!”

“But amn’t I going to write themes out here? What are our desks for, I’d like to know?”

“Yes, I s’pose so. Oh, well, fix your books as you like; you will anyway.”

“I’m putting my highbrow books up top”

“ ’Course I will. And I hereby give you permission to do the same.”

“Thank you, oh, thank you! It’s tiresome work, isn’t it?”

“Jiminy! I should say it was! Come on, Doll, let’s make some lemonade. I’m choked with dust and with some old dry lingo that leaked out of my wise books. Come on, Dollums.”

“All right. Got any lemons?”

“Yep, brought some on purpose. Sugar too. And we can make it in that darling kitchenettio!”

Away the girls went, and concocted lemonade that tasted like fairy nectar. To squeeze lemons by means of their own glass squeezer, to get sugar out of their own sugar-box (after they had put it in), to draw water from their own flashing, shining, silver-plated faucets,—this was joy indeed!

“Seems to me I never tasted anything so good,” said Dolly, gazing into her glass, as they sat at their golden dining-room table.

“Nor I. But it makes me so fearfully hungry.”

“At one we must go home to lunch, I s’pose. Wish we could lunch here.”

“We will next Saturday, but of course, we’ve got to get a lot of things together to do that.”

“It’s nearly one, now. We must finish up this lemonade and scoot. Will you come back right after your lunch is over?”

“Yes, of course. Quick as I can hop here. But I’m so hungry I ’spect I’ll eat a whole lot.”

“Me too.”

CHAPTER VI
SUCH A LUNCHEON!

The lemonade finished, and the glasses washed and put away, the girls were about to start for home, when along came Trudy and Norah, the Fayres’ cook, each with a tray covered with a big, white napkin.

“Oh, goody, goody, GOODY!” shouted Dotty, catching sight of them first. “It’s lunch to eat over here! It is! It is!”

They flung open the front door and as they did so, there appeared from the house on the other side, Aunt Clara and Maria, the Roses’ old coloured cook, one carrying a basket, and the other a strange-looking burden, muffled up in a piece of blanket.

“Glory be! but dis yer am hot!” and Maria hurried in with the blanketed bundle, which proved to be a silver pot of cocoa, steaming and fragrant.

Laughing with glee, the girls relieved the messengers of their loads and put them all on the dining-room table. The callers declined to stay, having a feeling that half the fun of Treasure House was in the Two D’s having it to themselves. So away they went, and with shrieks of delight, the donations were opened.

“Did you ever see such a picture!” cried Dolly, as she brought to view a small platter of cold tongue, garnished round with asparagus tips and tiny pickles.

“And gaze on this to go with it!” Dotty said, flourishing a plate of sandwiches, delicate and dainty, and of several varieties.

“Let’s eat ’em now, while the cocoa’s hot, and anyway, I can’t wait.”

Dotty seated herself at the table, while Dolly, in her methodical way, went on with the preparations. “I’ll put the dessert on this side table,” she said. “Don’t begin, Dot, till it’s all ready. Will you look! Here’s a Floating Island! Just enough for us two, in Trudy’s best glass dish! And Maria’s little raisin cakes! Say, Dot, they telephoned or something and arranged this lunch between the two houses.”

“ ’Course they did. Do come on, Dolly. Don’t stand admiring the things all day. Come on and eat.”

“All right, everything is all ready now, and we can eat in comfort. Here’s a lovely basket of fruit, but we won’t want that for lunch, let’s keep it for this afternoon.”

“Keep it for Christmas! if you’ll only come on! Dolly Fayre, you are so slow, you do exasperate me somethin’ awful!”

“Dotty Rose, you are so impatient, you drive me crazy!” but Dolly came, smiling and tranquil, and took her seat at the table.

“Isn’t it great!” she said, looking about at the pretty golden room, the tempting feast, daintily set forth, and at eager Dotty, her dark eyes sparkling, and her red lips pouting at Dolly’s delay.

“Simpully gorgeous!” and Dotty’s pout disappeared as they began the first meal in Treasure House. “I say, Dollum, isn’t it funny how we Roses came here and happened to live alongside of you Fayres, and you and I became such chums?”

“Awful funny. And we’re such good friends, even though we’re so different in every way.”

“Not in every way, we like the same things often, but sometimes we’re so very different, it makes us seem differenter than we really are.”

“Yes, I guess that’s it, though I can’t exactly follow your meaning. My, but these sandwiches are good! Let’s have lunch here every Saturday, shall us? Of course, we’ll fix the things ourselves. We couldn’t expect Trudy and your Aunt Clara to do it,—only this first time. But Norah and Maria will make things for us, and we can do a lot ourselves. I mean to learn to cook,—not so much cook on the stove, you know,—as to make sandwiches and salads and desserts and deviled eggs and—”

“And cocoa—and oh, Dollyrinda, some Saturday we’ll ask somebody to lunch, and we’ll make all the things ourselves!”

“And, oh, Dotsie, when the boys come home for Thanksgiving, maybe we won’t have fun! Brother Bert is crazy to see this house.”

“And Bob is, too. I expect those two brothers of ours will just take possession of it.”

“ ’Deed they won’t! But of course they can come here all they want, and if they want to borrow it for a boy racket of their own, why of course we’ll let ’em.”

“Well, isn’t that pretty much taking possession, I’d like to know! Have some more cocoa?”

“You mustn’t say, ‘Have some more’ anything. You ought to say, ‘Have some cocoa?’ ”

“But you’ve already had some!”

“I know it. But that’s good manners. You must ignore the fact of my having had any.”

“Pooh! Well, Miss Fayre, as you haven’t had any cocoa, to my knowledge, mayn’t I beg you to try it?”

“Since you put it so politely, I don’t care if I do take another cup or two. You see, I don’t have to ignore it, I own right up.”

“You and your manners are too much for me!”

“But, honestly, Dotty, it is right not to put in the ‘more.’ And you mustn’t do it.”

“All right, I won’t. But it’s simply impossible for me to ignore the dozens of sandwiches you’ve eaten. So I’ll say, Have some cake?”

“As the sandwiches are all gone, I believe I will begin on the cake. But, somehow, I don’t feel as hungry as I did. Do you?”

“Nixy. Say, Doll, here’s an idea! S’pose we save these cakes,—there’s a lot of them,—and that big basket of fruit till this afternoon and invite the two Rawlins girls over. How about it?”

“All right, I’ll go you. For, honest, I can’t eat any of it now. But we’ll eat up Trudy’s Floating Island, she makes it lovely, and there isn’t such a lot of that.”

“All right. If we’re going to ask those girls, we must get a move on and do up these dishes. I hate to do dishes, don’t you?”

“Yes, at home. But it isn’t so bad here. It’s kind of fun!”

“Not very much fun. But anyway, the dishes that belong over to our homes, we can pile in this basket, and Maria will come for them.”

“They’ve got to be washed first, though. It isn’t nice to send them back unwashed.”

“Oh, what a prim old maid! You ought to live alone with a cat and a poll parrot!”

“That isn’t old-maidness, that’s just plain, every-day tidiness. Now you get a dish towel, and I’ll wash, and we’ll have these things put to rights in a jiffy.”

The girls knew how, and they did their work well, but it did take some time, for such work cannot be done too swiftly. But on the whole, they enjoyed the task, and were gratified at the sight of the shining glass and china in their own glass-cupboard, and the neatly packed basket and tray full of dishes to be returned to their home pantries.

Then they went and sat before their Study fire, to rest and talk.

“Seems to me,” said Dolly, “time does go awful fast. Here it’s after three o’clock, and the afternoon is ’most gone.”

“And we must go home and dress,” said Dotty, “if we’re going to have Grace and Ethel. These ginghams won’t do.”

“No, not in our pretty new house! Well, let’s go home and dress, and then we can telephone them, from home. Shall I do it, or you?”

“Oh, I’ll do it. You’ll have all you can do to get dressed in time to get back here before dark. You’re so everlasting slow.”

“Slow and sure, as the molasses said to the quicksilver. All right, you telephone the Rawlinses, and if they can’t come, what then? Shall we ask any one else?”

“Might ask Maisie May. But we don’t want a lot. It’ll seem too much like a party, and besides, there won’t be enough cakes to go round.”

“All right. If the Rawlinses can’t come you call up Maisie, and if she can’t, we’ll flock by ourselves. Maybe Mother’ll want me to go out with her somewhere, anyway. You never can tell.”

“Oh, don’t do that! If you do, I’ll get the girls to come just to see me. And it would be horrid not to be together this first day.”

“Well, I ’spect I can come back. Say, Dot, we ought to have a telephone connection here.”

“Wish we could, but, you know when we spoke of it, Dad said we couldn’t have everything all at once. Let’s strike for it for Christmas.”

“All right. But I s’pose we can just as well run over home to telephone. Now, you take your folkses’ basket and I’ll take our trays. Got your key?”

“Yes. Have you? I’ll lock the door. You go on. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” and both girls ran away home.

Mrs. Fayre had intended to have Dolly go on an errand with her, but, hearing of the projected plan, she let the child off.

“Go over to Treasure House, dear, if you like,” she said; “but some days I must claim you as my own little girl. I don’t want to lose you entirely.”

“No, Mumsie,” said Dolly, her arms around her mother’s neck, “but Saturdays, you know,—can’t I always have Saturdays for the House?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Now go and dress. And be home by dinner time, Trudy expects company.”

“Yes’m,” and Dolly scampered away to dress. She heard the telephone and went to answer, thinking it might be Dotty. And it was.

“The Rawlins girls are coming,” Dotty said, “and Maisie happened to be at their house so I had to ask her too. There’ll be cakes enough if we go light ourselves.”

“All right. I’ll be over pretty soon. Good-bye.”

Dolly made a leisurely toilette, as she always did. She rarely moved quickly, but on the other hand, she was not often late. She put on a pretty little voile frock, of bluet blue, with white pipings. A big white ribbon bow tied her hair back, and then it fell in a long braid, with curly ends. She threw a big cloak round her, one of Trudy’s discarded party-cloaks, and ran across to Treasure House.

Of course, Dotty was already there. She had on a dress of bright Scotch plaid, which suited her type. Scarlet ribbons on her hair, and a necklace of bright red beads made her look quite festive.

“What a jolly cloak! Trude’s?”

“It was, but she gave it to me. Just the thing to wear to run over here. It’s warm, but it’s handy.”

“It’s dandy, you mean. Wish I had one. I guess I can bamboozle Mother or Auntie into making me one. You look awfully nice this afternoon. Why didn’t you wear your blue beads?”

“They don’t quite match this frock. They’re too greenishly blue. Why did you wear those red ones?”

“ ’Cause they do match this dress.”

“No, they don’t. They’re crimson and the red in the plaid is scarlet.”

“Oh, what a fuss! Well, then, I wore ’em ’cause they’re pretty and becoming and I like ’em,—so there now!”

“All right, glad you do. Here come the girls.”

Further discussion of tints and shades was cut short by the entrance of Grace and Ethel Rawlins and Maisie May.

“Well, if this isn’t the greatest place! I never heard of such a thing before. Where did you get the idea?”

“Oh, it’s just heavenly! Such lovely furniture and things!”

“And there’s another room! Why, a dining-room! I never did!”

Exclamations drowned each other. The visitors went in each of the three rooms and each called forth new praises. It was indeed a novelty, and appealed to the girls’ hearts as a most desirable and cosy place to read or study.

“But can you study here?” asked Maisie. “I should think you’d be all the time thinking what to do next to fix it up, and you couldn’t put your mind on your lessons.”

“It may be that way,” laughed Dolly. “We haven’t really tried it yet. You see we only moved in this morning. Not everything is to rights yet. We don’t mind you girls seeing it before it’s all done, but I want it in apple-pie order before we have the Hallowe’en party.”

“Come on,” said Dotty, “let’s gather round the Study fire, and talk over the party. Hallowe’en isn’t so very far away.”

The girls drew up chairs for some and cushions from the window-seats for some, and grouped themselves comfortably before the fire. Dolly put on a log from time to time, for she was one of those rare creatures who are born with a sense of fire-building, as others are born with a sense of colour or rhythm. She always knew just where to poke the dying logs, and where to lay the fresh ones. Dotty had promised not to touch it, for she had a fatal propensity for putting the fire out, or at least causing it to die down.

“Oh, it’s ideal!” exclaimed Grace; “I do envy you girls this place. I wish we could have one, but Father wouldn’t hear of it. He’d think it cost too much.”

“It didn’t cost such an awful lot, my father says,” said Dolly. “But, you know it isn’t always cost that counts. Lots of things are unusual, and that makes people think they are impossible. Your father could afford one, Grace, if he wanted to. You see, it could be built much cheaper than this one. You needn’t really have but one room and then—my goodness! What’s that?”

For a regular hullabaloo was heard outside. Knocking at the door, tapping at the windows, even pounding on the house itself!

Dotty looked out.

“It’s the boys!” she said, and her voice was as of one who announces a dire calamity.

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Dolly. “What shall we do? I didn’t want them this afternoon.”

“Tell ’em they can’t come in,” said Maisie. “It isn’t fair.”

“Yes,” agreed Grace. “Just open the door, and tell them they must wait till next week. I’ll tell them, if you want me to. My brother Clayton is there, and I’ll make him take the others away.”

“I’ll go to the door,” said Dotty. “I can make them go away. If Doll goes, she’ll be so good-natured she’ll let them in. And we haven’t enough—well, that is,—we don’t want them to-day.”

The noise continued, and the boys were now peeping in at the windows, and making signs of impatience.

Dotty and Grace opened the door, intending to persuade the would-be visitors to depart in peace, but the boys entered in a sort of flying wedge. It would have taken far more than two girls to keep them out. They were by no means rude or boisterous, but they were so determined to come in,—that they just came.

“Whew!” shouted Lollie Henry, “if this isn’t a peach of a place! How do you do, Dolly and Dotty! I suppose you’re hostesses. Yes, we will come in, thank you! De-lighted.”

And all the other boys,—and there were half a dozen of them,—joined the acclamation.

“Looky here at the dining-room! Well, maybe we aren’t swell! Wowly-wow-wow! See the dinky little kitchen-place! What do you cook, girls? Oh, no, thank you, we can’t stay to supper. Oh, no, we really can’t. So sorry! Still, of course, if you insist—”

The Two D’s gave in. The boys were so honestly interested and admiring, and they wanted to see everything so much that the hostesses couldn’t bear to turn them out, and indeed, they couldn’t turn them out if they had tried. So they let them stay, ungrudgingly, and after viewing the whole domain, the entire company surrounded the Study fire once more. The boys mostly sat on the floor, but that made it all the merrier.

“I’ll tell you the honest truth,” said Dolly, a little later. “We’ve got enough cakes and fruit for one piece all round, if that will satisfy you, all right.”

“Ample!” declared Tod Brown. “I never eat more than one piece of fruit. A small quarter of an apple, or a section of an orange is a great sufficiency for my delicate appetite.”

The others rejoined with similar nonsense, and the scant refreshments were brought out and divided fairly, amid much laughter, and generous attempts at self denial.

And so the opening day at Treasure House passed off in great glee and merriment, and every guest was well pleased with the entertainment.

CHAPTER VII
FUNNY UNCLE JIM

Through the ensuing week the girls used Treasure House for study hours; and too, they finished up much in the way of furnishing. They were not both there every day, and sometimes neither was there, but the House was a great comfort, and soon they felt greatly at home in it.

“It’s getting fitted to us, like a shoe,” declared Dotty after a few days. “At first, I didn’t like the feel of this chair. Now, I love it.”

“Isn’t it funny how you get used to things,” said Dolly, musingly. “But you can’t always. I’m trying to get used to Bernice Forbes, and yet somehow, I can’t like her, and I don’t know why.”

“Of course you can’t, Dolly. She isn’t our sort.” And Dotty shook her head as if she had settled the question for all time.

“Oh, pshaw! Our sort! What is our sort, I’d like to know. She’s just as good as we are, just as rich, just as fashionable—”

“Oh, I don’t mean those things. She’s richer than any of our set, and fashionabler, too. But that doesn’t make her our sort.”

“Well, what does? if you know so much.”

“She’s too stuck-up, for one thing. But that isn’t the main thing. She’s a—oh, I don’t know how to express it. But she hasn’t any gumption, or any,—oh, any sense. But she thinks she has, and it’s that that makes her so disagreeable.”

“I don’t think you’re altogether right, but I’m going to find out. I don’t see why nobody likes her.”

“But you ought to see that if nobody does like her, it’s because she isn’t likable, for some reason or other.”

“I do see that, and I’m going to find out that some reason or other.”

“Pitch in, and find out, then. Good luck to you! Oh, here comes Grace.”

“Thought I’d find you here,” said Grace Rawlins, as Dotty opened the door to her. “Hello, Dolly, busy studying?”

“Just about to begin to think about getting at it,” returned Dolly, laughing. “But it can wait; sit down, Gracie.”

“Can’t stay a minute. I just flew in to ask you two to go nutting to-morrow, up at Uncle Jim’s woods.”

“Gorgeous! I’d love to go,” cried Dotty and Dolly echoed, “So would I!”

“Well, it’s just only us and Ethel and Maisie. I can’t ask any more, ’cause Uncle is going to send for us in his car, and he’ll send us home again. Won’t it be fun?”

“Fine! I can do all my lessons to-night, can’t you, Doll?”

“I will, whether I can or not. What time do we start, Grace?”

“One o’clock, sharp. Be ready, won’t you? And don’t wear too good clothes, it’s a real country place.”

“All right, we’ll wear our oldest.”

Grace went away, declaring she wouldn’t longer interfere with their study, and the Two D’s set to work in earnest.

“Then we can’t have lunch over here to-morrow,” Dotty said, a bit regretfully.

“No matter, there are lots of other Saturdays. I’d rather go nutting while we can.”

“So would I. Now keep still, I’ve got to attack these Geometry problems.”

“Thank goodness, I’ve done mine. But History still stares me in the face.”

Silence settled down upon them, broken occasionally by a murmur of this sort: “Ptolemy I was followed by a series of monarchs—by a series of monarchs—what are you going to wear, Dotsie?”

“That old brown gingham—the cube root of xy—364/2—”

Dolly burst into laughter. “X square plus seven X plus fifty-three equals eleven thirds!” she quoted.

Dotty laughed back and quoted their favourite “Hunting of the Snark.”

“Taking three as the number to reason about —

A convenient number to state —

We add Seven and Ten and then multiply out

By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

The result we proceed to divide, as you see,

By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:

Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be —”

“Must be what, Dolly?”

“Exactly and perfectly true,” said Dolly, who was only half listening, but who knew her Lewis Carroll by heart. Her eyes were turned up to the ceiling and she was gabbling over and over—“by a series of monarchs also called Ptolemies down to the time of Queen Cleopatra, the last of the line. By a series of Ptolemies—a series of Ptolemies also called monarchs,—h’m—also called Cleopatra—no, also called—also called—oh, what were the old things called?”

“You’re nutty!” said Dotty. “No, my child, that isn’t slang, I mean you’re thinking of the nutting party and you can’t get the series of mummies straight in your head.”

“They weren’t mummies—”

“They were after they stopped being monarchs, weren’t they? All Egyptians were,—I mean, all fashionable Egyptians. Do keep still, dear, sweet Dollyrinda, do keep still. The cube root of xy,—Oh!—I do abhor, detest, despise, abominate these cubed XY’s!”

But having thus exploded her wrath, Dotty set to work in earnest and finally conquered the refractory factors.

“Done!” she announced, at the end of a half hour of hard work. “I’ve cubed everything in sight, and some roots that were hidden deeply and darkly in the earth.”

“You ought to be a Cubist, that we read so much about in the papers.”

“No, thank you. I’ll cube what I have to, but I’ll never go out cubing, for pleasure. How are your Ptolemies?”

“Awfully mixed up. I’m going to let them simmer over night, and get up early and attack them with the dew on them. Perhaps I can lash ’em to the mast then.”

The next day turned out to be an ideal piece of weather. Clear, cold, the wind tossing white drifts of cloud about in the upper blue, and descending to whisk the nuts off the trees for those who desired them. The wind was aided and abetted by Uncle Jim’s men, and when the crowd of girls arrived, there was a widespread area of nut-besprinkled ground awaiting them.

“Well, this is some sort of a nutting party,” said Dolly, as, each with a basket, they started to the fray. “All I’ve been on lately, meant hunting around half an hour for three small nuts,—one wormy.”

“Oh, Dolly, what a sad experience,” Grace returned. “I’m so glad I brought you up here to Brazil, where the nuts come from.”

“It’s sure some little old Brazil, all right,” agreed Dotty, and then they all stooped to their task.

Baskets were quickly filled, and the girls sat down to rest under a tree.

“This must be the old original spreading Chestnut Tree,” said Maisie. “I always wondered if it did really spread such a lot. I see it does.”

“Here comes the spread!” said Grace, as a maid appeared bearing a tray filled with glasses and plates. The contents were sweet cider and ginger cakes, and to the hungry girls they looked very good indeed.

“But we must be getting home,” said Ethel. “I promised Mother we’d be back by five or six, at latest.”

“We can’t go till Uncle Jim sends us,” said Grace. “I told him we wanted to leave at four, but he only said ‘Oh, shucks!’ ”

“Where is he?” asked Dolly. “And isn’t there any Aunt Jim?”

“No, he’s a bachelor. Lives here alone, except for the servants. The truth is, he’s a little shy before a lot of strange girls. Guess I’ll go and hunt him up.”

She ran away to the house, and Ethel explained further: “You see, he’s Mother’s uncle. Quite an old man. And old-fashioned in his ways, except that he has a motor-car and a telephone. But personally, he’s as backwoodsy as Methuselah; but a dear old thing, and awfully kind-hearted.”

Grace came back in triumph, leading Uncle Jim. Pushing and pulling him, rather, for the old man was clearly unwilling to come.

“Now, now, Pussy, whatyer want to drag an old man like me out here fur? These city young misses don’t wanter see me!”

“Yes, we do, Uncle Jim,” called out Ethel, and they all echoed, “Yes, we do, Uncle Jim!”

“Well, well, what a perty lot o’ young misses. And have you all got all the nuts you want?”

“Yes, indeedy!” cried Dolly. “All we can carry, and more too. And we’re ever and ever so much obliged.”

“Not at all, not at all! Ye’re welcome to all and more. It’s a sight to see young things runnin’ around the old place. Why don’t ye bring ’em up oftener, Gracie?”

“Only waiting for an invitation, sir,” and Dotty’s sparkling black eyes laughed into the old face.

“Shucks, now! Well, I hereby invite ye, one and all, to come up here jest whenever ye like, and raise hob.”

“Good!” cried Maisie. “I just love to raise hob! Let’s come next week, girls, when those other nuts are ripe.”

“Do, now jest do!” said the old man, delightedly. “This old place don’t get sight of chick nor child very often. Must ye be goin’ now? Well, mind now, ye’re to come agin next week. Make a day of it, and bring more of yer young friends. I’ll see to it that Sary makes ye some good old-fashioned doughnuts, and apple turnovers.”

“Look here, Uncle Jim, I’ve an idea,” and Ethel ran to him and laid her hand impressively on his arm.

“Fer the land’s sake, Ethel, ye don’t say so!” and Uncle Jim shook with laughter at his own wit. “A little gell like you with an idea! Sho, sho, now. Come, out with it! It might fester!”

“Now don’t you tease me. But it’s just this. S’pose we come up here on Hallowe’en and have a witch party.”

“My patience! what an idea for a little gell to have! Now, lemme see,—lemme see.”

“No, that’s too much trouble for you, Uncle Jim,” said Grace. “You oughtn’t to have proposed it, Ethel.”

“No, now, wait a minnit, Gracie. Don’t you be too hasty. ’Tain’t no trouble at all, I wasn’t thinkin’ of that. I was thinkin’ if I could make things nice and perty fer you young misses. That’s the trouble. I’m plain, you see, plain, and—”

“Now, that’s just what we want, Uncle Jim, just the plain house, and orchard. We’ll do all the fixing up, ourselves.”

“Now, now, wait a minnit, I tell you. Don’t go so everlastin’ fast. I can’t keep up with you. Here’s the trick. You have your mother come up in the arternoon, and she can help me put things a leetle mite to rights. Then me and Sary and Etty can do the rest.”

“Oh, Mother’ll be glad to come. How about it, girls?”

“Why, we were going to have a Hallowe’en party, ourselves,” said Dotty, smiling as she saw Dolly’s look of consternation.

“I know it; but don’t you think this would be more fun, in the country, you know. Don’t you, Dolly? We won’t do it, if you say not,” and Grace looked embarrassed, “but I thought your party was more like a house-warming for your new playhouse, and so—”

“All right, I say,” and Dotty, turned to Dolly. “Whatcha think, Dollops? Speak out in meetin’! If you don’t want to come up here, say so.”

“I do,” said Dolly, her face clearing. She couldn’t think as rapidly as Dotty, and it took her a minute or two to readjust her plans. “It will be heaps of fun. Are you sure you want us,—Uncle Jim?” The blue eyes looked up into his own, and Uncle Jim said heartily, “You bet I do! Every one here, and a half a dozen more perty young misses, and then boys enough to go round, can you get that many?”

“Oh, yes, we’ll ask all our crowd, and fill up with some of the others. What fun! I’m sure Mother will be pleased, she loves to come up here.”

“All right, Gracie, girl, you talk it over with her, and I’ll be down in a few days, and we’ll see about it.”

“Can we go in the house, Uncle, and see how it is for a party?”

“Sure and sartain! Go right along, the hull pack o’ ye. Browse around, and see the hull shack, and by then, I’ll be ready to send ye home. Go right in the kitchen door. Sary, she’s the cook, ’ll be glad to see you, and Etty, that’s her darter, ’ll show ye round.”

The girls went to the kitchen door, not quite so sure of Sary’s warm welcome as their host was. But they found he was right.

“Well, for the land’s sake! What a delegation! Come in, Miss Grace and Miss Ethel, and bring your friends. Excuse my untidiness. I wasn’t no-ways expecting company.”

The apology was wholly unnecessary, for everything in Sary’s kitchen was spick and span and shining. She was a buxom woman of middle age, and had a broad, smiling face, overflowing with good nature. Her daughter, Etty, was the one who brought them their cakes and cider, and she was shy, but exceedingly curious to see the city ladies,—as the girls seemed to her.

She conducted them all over the fine old farmhouse, and listened in surprise as they exclaimed in wonder and delight over the big open fireplaces, and old mahogany furniture, that seemed to her the most uninteresting and commonplace affairs.

“Perfectly gorgeous!” cried Dotty. “Oh, Grace, I’d ever so much rather have the Hallowe’en party here. Wouldn’t you, old Dollypops?”

“Yes, of course. And we can just as well have any other sort of a party at Treasure House.”

“Course we can. And we will. After this affair is over. I say, girls, let’s have it a masquerade!”

“Oh, let’s!” said Maisie. “I’ve a dress all ready to wear. It’s a witch dress, all—”

“I think we ought all to dress as witches,” interrupted Grace. “Or spooks or hobgoblins or—”

“That’s all right,” put in Dotty, “but the boys won’t do it. They hate dressing up.”

“Let ’em stay away, then.”

“No, a Hallowe’en party without boys is no fun. They make up the tricks and jokes, you know.”

“That’s so,” said Dolly, “but if you tell the boys they can’t come unless they wear spooky rigs, they’ll do it fast enough. Why, a sheet and pillowcase ghost-rig is good enough, and that’s no trouble at all! Don’t you know Dot, we wore them up at Crosstrees last summer, and the boys didn’t mind a bit.”

“Yep, that’s so. Oh, the boys will come. You couldn’t keep them away. What a fireplace to roast chestnuts or pop corn!”

They were in the dining-room now, and its enormous stone fireplace was indeed ideal for a Hallowe’en frolic. And the kitchen, too, offered enchanting possibilities. Then there was the orchard, if any one dared try fortunes beneath the stars. Altogether it was a splendid chance and the Two D’s were glad to lay aside their own half formed plans for these.

On the way home, they talked it over, and as they drew near the Roses’ house the D’s asked the other girls to come in and talk some more.

“I can’t,” said Grace, “I promised Mother, Ethel and I would get home early. It’s a little after five now.”

“Then you come in, Maisie,” said Dolly. “We’ll make fudge. You can stay till six, can’t you?”

“Yes, indeed, and I’m simply starving for fudge.”

CHAPTER VIII
A STRANGE INTRUDER

“I do think this is the dearest place,” said Maisie, as they went in the door of Treasure House. “I never heard of such a thing before. Whose plan was it?”

“Our two fatherses, mostly,” replied Dotty. “Wait a minute, girls, till I switch on the light.”

In a moment a small side light pierced the gloom, but before she could turn on the larger light, Dotty gave a scream.

“Oh,” she fairly shrieked, “what is that? who is it?”

“Who is what?” cried Dolly following her in, and Maisie came quickly after.

Then they saw what she meant. Somebody or something lay on the floor. Something like a person, but still and unmoving.

“It’s a woman!” screamed Dotty, as she peered down into a veiled white face. “Oh, who can it be? How did she get here?”

Always excitable, Dotty was now fairly beside herself with fear and alarm, and not daring to touch the prostrate figure, she shuddered and fell back against the wall.

“I can’t look! What is it?” and Dolly clapped her hands over her eyes, and refused to take them down. “See what it is, Maisie, won’t you?”

“No. I don’t see why I—I sh-should, when you and D-D-Dotty won’t,” and Maisie cowered in another corner.

Dolly peeped out from between her fingers. Maisie had fallen in a heap on a window-seat, and was shaking with nervous fear. Dotty was staring at the woman on the floor, but was now showing more curiosity than terror. Dolly glanced at the still form lying there.

“Is she—is she d-dead?” she faltered.

“Ridiculous!” cried Dotty, “of course not. She—she just stepped in here, and—and f-fainted!”

“Oh,” and Dolly became hysterical. “That’s like a f-funny story Father tells, ab-bout the man who called at a house and said, ‘P-please let me have a f-f-fit in your hall’!”

“If he stuttered as much as you do, I guess he had a chill instead of a fit,” giggled Dotty, and then Maisie roused herself.

“Let’s lift her up,” she said; “I’m not afraid. Come and help me.” She took a few steps nearer the woman, and then catching another look at the face she cried, “Oh, I can’t! She looks so queer!”

“Queer, how?” and Dotty’s ever-ready curiosity overcame her repugnance, and she drew near to look in the half-hidden face. “If I dared lift her veil—” she bent over, and drew back instantly. “Oh, girls, her face is cold, stone cold!”

“Then she’s dead!” wailed Dotty. “I told you so! Dead in our pretty house!”

“Well, if the poor lady is dead, she can’t harm us. Let’s lift her up,” and Maisie, with returning courage, put her hand under the mop of grey hair, which was partly hidden beneath a dark felt hat. But again, the strange, eerie sensation of touching an inert form overcame her and pulling her hand away, she ran back to the window-seat. “I can’t! I thought I could, but I can’t. Oh, what shall we do?”

“I s’pose we’ll have to go and get somebody,” said Dolly dolefully. “Shall I go, and you two stay here, or who—”

“Don’t you go and leave me here alone with Maisie!” screamed Dotty. “I won’t let you, Dolly. Maisie, you go and get somebody, and Dolly and I will stay here.”

Maisie started, but on opening the door, and peering out, she flew back, slamming the door hard.

“What is it?” cried both girls. “What did you see?”

“Oh, oh!” and Maisie shivered and shook.

“Tell us, what’s out there? What did you see out there?”

“Oh, n-n-othing. But it’s so dark! I’m afraid to go out. There may be more of them—”

“More people wanting to have a fit in our hall?” said Dotty, who never could fail to see the ridiculous side of anything.

“Don’t, Dot,” implored Dolly. “Don’t talk like that! Maybe she is d-dead, you know.”

“Maybe? Why, of course she is! She doesn’t breathe or move at all. Of course she’s dead, Dolly. We’ve got to go and get somebody. Suppose we all go. It’s awful to leave her here alone, but what can we do?”

“Oh, we oughtn’t all to leave her. Maybe she’ll come to.”

“She can’t if she’s dead, can she?”

“Well, wait a minute. You always fly off so quick, Dotty. Let me think. Let’s all sit down here and think a minute.”

Dolly pulled the two girls down beside her on a window-seat. They looked at the silent, motionless form. The woman lay on her side, her hands under her. Her feet in old buttoned shoes stuck out beneath a shabby skirt of dark cloth, frayed at the edges. She wore a big, dark coat of rough cloth. Her hat was held on by a thick veil through which they could quite plainly see her face. She had a very white complexion, but very red cheeks, and staring wide-open blue eyes.

Her grey hair was frowsy and half tumbling down, and round her neck was an old black feather boa. Altogether she looked poorly dressed but her face gave promise of being pretty.

“I’ve got to see her better,” declared Dotty, as Dolly’s cogitation had promised no suggestions. “I’ve just simply got to! Maisie, will you help lift her head, if I’ll help?”

“Yes, I will,” said Maisie, decidedly; “I won’t flinch this time.”

Dotty went over and knelt at the woman’s side. Maisie knelt at her head. “Now,” said Dotty, “I’ll put my hands under her shoulders and you put yours beneath her head, and we’ll sit her up. Maybe—well,—maybe she isn’t—you know.”

Gently Dotty put her hand under the old cloth coat, carefully Maisie passed her hand again under the grey hair.

“Now!” said Dotty, and as they lifted, the grey hair came off in Maisie’s hand, and—the head of the woman rolled away from the body! All three girls shrieked, and then Dotty began to scream with laughter.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, that naughty little thing! Oh, how could she! Girls, girls, it isn’t a woman, it’s a dummy thing that horrid little Genie fixed up to tease us! She ought to be punished for this! But we were well taken in!”

The other two began to realise at last what Dotty meant. Sure enough, the grey hair was a wig, or rather, what is known as a “Transformation.” The head was a plaster cast, nearly life size, and the body of the supposed woman was a small bolster dressed in old clothes. The shoes were merely tucked under the edge of the skirt.

Dotty lifted up the head and pulled off the veil. “It’s my old cast of the head of the Milo Venus,” she said. “See, that little scamp has painted the cheeks and lips red, and the eyes blue, and left the rest white. No wonder she looked pale!”

“And with that veil on, it sure did look like a person,” said Maisie. “Well she had the joke on us, all right! I was scared out of my wits!”

“So was I,” whispered Dolly, who was still shaking; “and I can’t get over it. It was awful!”

“Oh, pooh!” said Dotty, “I was scared too. But I fully expect to get over it! I think we all will! Don’t worry, Doll, a pan of fudge will calm your nerves.”

“Oh, it’s too late to make fudge. I want to go home.”

“Stay right where you are, sister. A few more bright lights, and a fudge-fest will make a new Dolly of you.”

As she talked, Dotty was switching on lights all over the house, getting out chocolate and the chafing-dish, and, making signs to Maisie to perk up and be gay.

Maisie took the hint, and in a short time, there was excellent fudge ready for three merrily laughing girls.

Dotty felt the responsibility of the thing, for it was her sister who was the culprit. She recognised the cast and also the clothing and the wig, and she knew it could have been no one else but the mischievous Genie. So she did all she could to remove the shadow of unpleasantness that hung round the performance, and she succeeded admirably.

Naturally, the talk turned to the Hallowe’en party.

“I suppose Grace and Ethel will make out the list of invitations,” said Dotty.

“It won’t take much making out,” was Maisie’s idea. “They’ll just ask our crowd and that will be about enough. Us five who were there to-day, and Celia, and six boys, will be twelve. That’s plenty.”

“I wish she’d ask Bernice Forbes,” said Dolly, doubtfully, “but I s’pose she won’t.”

“I s’pose she won’t, too,” said Dot. “Pooh, who wants Bernice Forbes?”

“I don’t, for one,” asserted Maisie. “I can’t bear the girl.”

“I don’t see why,” argued Dolly. “She would be all right if people would be nice to her.”

“All right? She can’t be all right,” and Dotty shook her head. “She don’t know how to be all right.”

“That’s so,” and Maisie laughed. “Well, I must go home, girls. I’ve had a lovely fudge party, and I think Genie’s joke was a great success. Tell her so, for me, Dotty.”

“All right, I will,” and with laughing good-byes, Maisie went home and the Two D’s stayed to put things straight. It was their rule never to leave Treasure House untidy over night. Dotty whistled and Dolly sang, as they flew around and soon had things ship-shape.

“Now, Dot,” said Dolly, as they poked out the dying embers of the fire, “I want to tell you something. I’m going to ask Grace to ask Bernice to that party.”

“No, you’re not, Dollyrinda. You think so now, but you go home and think it over, and you’ll see that you’ll spoil the whole party if you do.”

“You mean spoil it for you! It won’t for anybody else. Not everybody is as mean as you are to that girl!”

“Nobody likes her, you’ve often said so yourself.”

“All the more reason, then, to have her there and let them learn to like her.”

“Oh, good gracious! you make me tired! Why are you so everlastingly gone on her? Just because she’s rich?”

“Dotty Rose, you take that back! That’s a mean thing to say, and you know it isn’t true. Don’t you?”

“Well, I never knew you to care for anybody for that reason before; but I can’t think of any other.”

“Well, that isn’t the reason, and you know it perfectly well. Now, I’ll tell you what the reason is, if you can understand it, and I don’t know as you can. It’s because I’m sorry for her. Everybody snubs her, and she’d just love to be liked and sought after.”

“Oh, she would, would she? Then why doesn’t she make herself liked and sought after?”

“How can she, if we don’t give her a chance?”

“Let her make her own chance.”

“But, she can’t, Dotty. If no one invites her anywhere, how can she make herself agreeable and pleasant to them?”

“Let her give a party herself, and invite us.”

“I’ve no doubt she’d be glad to, if she thought we’d go to it. But if we snub her right and left, she won’t dare ask us.”

“Well, let her be more pleasant at school, then. She’s stuck-up and proudy, and she thinks she’s the whole world. Oh, let up, Dolly! what do you want to bother with her for? There are enough in our crowd already. And we just plain don’t want her.”

“Dot, you’re horrid. Can’t you feel sorry for her? Put yourself in her place. How would you feel if everybody turned the cold shoulder to you?”

“I’d be so gay and merry they’d have to like me.”

“Oh, that’s all very well, because everybody does like you. But if they snubbed you, what then?”

“Why, Dollops, if I deserved it, I’d have to grin and bear it, I ’spect. But facts is facts. You can’t make Bernie Forbes over, and unless you can, you can’t make people like her, and that’s all there is about it. And another thing, Doll. I know and you know your high and noble aim in this matter, but the others don’t, and wouldn’t believe it if they did. You go on like this, and people will soon be saying that you’re toadying to Bernice Forbes just because she’s the richest girl in town. And you’ll see what they’ll think of that!”

“Pooh, I don’t care if they do. Bernice hasn’t any mother, and her father is a stern, grumpy old thing, and I am sorry for her, and I am going to do anything I can to help her have a good time, and I am going to coax Grace Rawlins to ask her to the Hallowe’en party! So there, now, Miss Dorothy Rose, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

When Dolly was in earnest, she was very much so, and Dotty well knew there was no use combating her in this mood. So she changed her tactics, and said, laughingly, “Well, don’t let us quarrel about it anyway. And it’s time to go home now. Come on.”

“No, I won’t come on, till you say you’ll help me in my plan. If you and I both ask Grace to ask Bernie, she’ll do it. But if I ask her, and then you go to her, and ask her not to, she won’t do it. And I know that’s just what you’ll do!”

As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Dotty had intended to do. In fact, she had already planned in her quick-working mind, to telephone the moment she got home, to Grace, and ask her not to consent to Dolly’s request. It wasn’t that Dotty had such rooted objections to Bernice, but she was unattractive and stiff, and, moreover, exceedingly critical. And too, Dotty didn’t care so especially about the party, but she didn’t want Bernice included in the six girls who made up “their crowd,” and if Dolly took her up so desperately, first thing they knew, she would be in the “crowd” and she would be all the time coming to Treasure House, and—here was the rub,—Dotty feared, way down deep in her inmost heart, that Bernice might cut her out with Dolly, and that would be the crowning tragedy! It was scarcely possible, of course, but Dolly took strange notions sometimes, and Dotty was taking no chances on such a catastrophe.

“All right, I’ll promise not to say anything to Grace at all, about it. But I won’t promise to coax her to ask Bernice, for I don’t want her to. Aw, Dollyrinda, let up on that crazy scheme. It’s only a whim. And don’t you see, if you get her asked there, and she doesn’t have a good time, she’ll wish she hadn’t come after all. And so you’ll be giving her a disappointment instead of a pleasure.”

“But she would have a good time. I’d see that she did.”

“Yes, you would! And how? Why, you’d ask the boys to be nice to her, and dance with her and everything. And—would they do it? They would not! Did they do it, when you asked them at the High School Dance? They did not!”

“How do you know?”

“Lollie told me. He said it was ducky of you to try to be so nice to her, but it wouldn’t go down. The boys just simply plain won’t,—and you know it.”

“Isn’t it mean of them, Dot? Don’t you think it is?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I keep telling you, Dolly, if Bernice was nice to people, you wouldn’t have to try to boost her. And if she isn’t, boosting won’t do any good. There’s the whole thing in a nutshell. Now we must go home, or they’ll be sending over after us.”

“Yes, I s’pose we must. Well, Dot, I’ll see about this thing. I’ve got to think it over.”

“All right, old slowpoke thinker! And say, Dollops, you aren’t mad at what Genie did, are you?”

“Oh, goodness no. You know I don’t like practical jokes much; you know how I hated that one they played on Miss Partland, but I’m not mad at Genie, of course not.”

“Good for you. But I’ll see that she isn’t allowed to do such a thing again.”

CHAPTER IX
FAIRIES AND SUCH

Dolly did think over the question of Bernice Forbes and the party. And the result of her cogitation led her straight to Grace’s house.

“I’ve come,” she said, “to ask a favour, Grace. I want to know if you won’t ask Bernice Forbes to your Hallowe’en party.”

“Why, Dolly, I would,—only,—well, you see the number is all made up.”

“What number?”

“The number I planned to invite. Twelve, it is.”

“But couldn’t you add two more? Bernice, and another boy to make it even?”

“I suppose I could, but,—you know, Dolly, nobody likes Bernice. She’s—”

“Oh, don’t tell me what she is! I know it! But, Grace, I think it’s mean, the way we girls treat her. Now, never mind what she is, won’t you ask her, just for my sake?”

Dolly’s smile was very winning and her blue eyes very pleading and Grace was about to consent, when Ethel came in. They told her the subject under discussion.

“Not much!” declared Ethel. “If that thing goes, I don’t!”

“All right,” Dolly blazed back, “if she doesn’t go, I don’t!”

Probably neither girl meant what she said, but having said it, they both stuck to it. So spirited the argument became, that Mrs. Rawlins overheard the angry voices and came into the room.

“What is the matter, girlies? Why, Dolly Fayre, what are you crying about?”

“I’m not crying, Mrs. Rawlins,” and Dolly brushed a tear or two off her cheeks, “b-but I’m afraid,—maybe I m-might. I guess I’ll go home now.”

“Not till you tell me the trouble, dear,” and Mrs. Rawlins sat down beside the disturbed guest. “What is it, Grace?”

“It’s my fault, Mrs. Rawlins,” Dolly spoke up. “I was trying to make the girls do something they don’t want to. And I had no business to do it.” Dolly was always just, even against herself.

“But what is it? Tell me, Ethel.”

“Why, Mother, Dolly wants to ask Bernice Forbes to our party, and we don’t want to, ’cause she’d spoil the whole thing.”

“Why?” and Mrs. Rawlins smiled. “Is Bernice such a spoilsport as all that?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Do you think so, Dolly?”

“Well, you see, Mrs. Rawlins, she isn’t awfully nice, but I’m sorry for her; and I thought if we invited her to things, and made her like us, she’d be nicer, and we’d like her.”

“Is this the only reason, Dolly?” and Mrs. Rawlins looked quizzically at her.

Immediately it came into Dolly’s mind how Dotty had said everybody would attribute Dolly’s interest in Bernice to the fact that she was the daughter of the richest man in town, and really an heiress in her own right. Dolly blushed uncomfortably, but she looked straight at her questioner, and replied, “Yes, Mrs. Rawlins, it’s only because I’m sorry for Bernice, and,” she hesitated, and then added, honestly, “and a little, because everybody is so down on her, and I don’t think it’s fair!”

“I don’t either!” declared the lady, heartily; “you’re just right, Dolly. And Bernice shall be invited.”

“But Ethel says she won’t go, then,” began Grace, as Ethel herself spoke up, “Oh, of course I will, if mother says we must ask Bernice. I don’t care such a terrible lot, anyway, and I’m sorry I was snappy to you, Dolly.”

“I’m sorry I was snappy, too,” and Dolly’s pretty face showed real contrition. “Are you sure you won’t mind too much, girls?”

“Of course they won’t,” Mrs. Rawlins answered for them. She was a pretty, smiling little lady, and as a rule everybody who was with her liked to do as she said. “Now that is settled, Bernice shall be asked. Mustn’t we then ask one more boy?”

“Yes, Mother, and let’s ask Clayton to get some one. He knows a lot of boys, and he’ll know just which one to ask.”

“Good idea, Gracie. Is your dress ready, Dolly? What are you going to wear?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that before the girls! You know it’s a masquerade.”

“Oh, yes, so it is. Well, set your mind at rest, dear. I’ll ask Bernice myself, and I’ll tell her about the masquerade. Don’t let any one know she’s coming, and then they’ll never suspect who she is, until you take off your masks.”

“Oh, what a lovely idea, Mrs. Rawlins,” and Dolly’s eyes shone with pleasure. “Don’t tell, will you, girls?”

“No,” said Grace, “but everybody will know, when they see seven girls, who the other is.”

“They won’t know for sure, and anyway, the boys won’t know. You needn’t even tell Clayton.”

So the matter was settled, and Dolly went off home happy at having gained her point.

At last the night of the party arrived. The girls had planned not to let each other know what they would wear, and see if they could guess identities. Dolly and Dotty had no idea of each other’s costume, and even Grace and Ethel Rawlins were in equal ignorance of theirs.

The girls were to meet at the Rawlins house and the boys at the Browns’ and go out to Uncle Jim’s separately, in motor cars provided by the several families.

Mrs. Rawlins would act as hostess, and Mr. Rawlins was a general manager, who seemed to look after everything at once.

At the hour of meeting, Dolly found herself to be the first one to arrive. She had come from home by a roundabout way, and her father, who accompanied her to the corner, stepped aside and let her go up the steps alone, so that no one might suspect it was she. Dolly was attired as a Ghost. Her dress was lovely, being made of many layers of white tarlatan, one over the other, with long angel sleeves, and fluttering draperies, that wafted about as she walked.

A scarf of the same material enveloped her head and neck, and trailed its long ends behind her. She wore white silk gloves, but her hands were hidden in the swirl of the misty material. She was a veritable ghost, and deep in the shadows of her swathing headgear, her face was concealed by a little white satin mask. Of course her hair was completely hidden, and she moved with slow, sinuous movements, waving her draped arms in true spectre fashion.

“Come in, Ghost,” said Mrs. Rawlins, as Dolly stepped into the reception room. “Well, you are a spirit, indeed! I never saw a real live ghost before!”

Dolly swept long, ghostly curtseys, but said no word.

Grace Rawlins came next. She had gone out and around several blocks so that she might enter her own house as a visitor. Grace was a Fairy. Her dress was full and frilly, of pale pink crêpe paper, and she had pink and gilt wings, and a long wand. Her hair, which might have been recognisable, was hidden in a dainty pink silk cap, with a long gilt feather, and a full ruche of frilled paper hid her neck and chin. A pink mask covered her face, and she wore long pink silk gloves.

Dolly stared hard at her, but could not be sure who it was. She thought the Fairy looked a little like Maisie May, but never suspected Grace.

Maisie came next, though nobody knew it. She was a Brownie. She had borrowed a suit from a cousin out of town. The costume had been made for a city party and was an exact Brownie rig. Of course it completely disguised Maisie, and the goggle-eyed mask was weird and quite appropriate to the occasion.

Then Bernice came. She represented an Elf. Her costume was made entirely of overlapping green leaves, and a head-dress of the same. Green stockings and slippers, green gloves and a green mask made her entirely unrecognisable. Dolly thought it was Dotty, as the two were much the same height. Bernice moved about shyly, and sank into the first chair she came to, and then Dolly felt sure it was Dotty, trying to disguise her own brisk manner.

When Dotty did come, Dolly had no idea who it was. Her costume was that of a witch. Long red cloak and high peaked cap, from which hung straggling grey locks. A red and black gown, red stockings and black slippers, and a mask like that of a little old lady with a hooked nose and apple-cheeks. She carried a broom, gilded and tied with red ribbons. It was a most picturesque garb, and Dolly decided it must be Bernice.

But no one spoke to another. Occasionally one would nod knowingly, as if to say she recognised some one, or point a finger at her. But the other always shook her head vigorously, as if the guess were wrong.

It was imperative that each should represent some idea connected with the occasion, so Celia Ferris came as Autumn. She wore yellow and brown with touches of red, and she carried a basket of fruit. Her head-dress was made of Autumn leaves, and she wore long necklaces of cranberries strung on a thread.

Last to arrive was Ethel Rawlins. She had delayed late, thinking that then no one would suspect her identity.

She was The Nut Brown Maid. All her robe was of brown, and it had fringes of nuts at the ends of bits of ribbon. Her head-dress was trimmed with chestnut burs, and she had necklace and armlets of strung nuts.

Now the girls were all present, and though they guessed, none knew positively who any other was. Those who knew Bernice’s invitation had not told, and those who did not know it, wondered greatly who the seventh girl could be, though some surmised correctly.

Mrs. Rawlins laughingly collected her weird-looking charges and packed them into two big motor cars, and they set off for Uncle Jim’s,—for, at his request, all the girls called him by that familiar title,—and as the cars were swift ones, the party soon reached the country house.

Not a word was spoken on the way, for the girls found they were well disguised, and they determined to keep up the mystery. But there was much giggling and many expressive exclamations in deep guttural tones.

Reaching their destination, a wonderful scene awaited them. Uncle Jim had begged Mrs. Rawlins to do anything she could to make the house attractive and appropriate for the occasion. So, with the help of the willing servants, she had transformed the great hall and the big, old parlour into a veritable Hallowe’en Revel. Branches of bright Autumn leaves decked the walls. Red and yellow cheesecloth made gay draperies, and streamers of red and yellow crêpe paper fluttered here and there. Hollowed-out pumpkins held masses of little late chrysanthemums, and sheaves of grain stood in corners.

There were jack-o’-lanterns, too, made of yellow or of green pumpkins, and also of crook-neck squashes, whose candles within lit up their strange grotesque faces.

The boys had already arrived, and round the room stood seven silent figures. They were dressed as Robin Hood, Peter Pan, or merely as spooks and goblins. Apparently the boys had been quite willing to “dress up,” and their costumes were as picturesque as the girls’.

Uncle Jim greeted the incoming crowd.

“Wal, wal, what a visitation! My, but ye’re a lot of perty spooks! Look at this white ghost now!” as Dolly swept him a long, low bow. “Ain’t she the beauty? I ain’t afeard of ghostes like that, now, you bet I ain’t! And see the Fairy! My stars! Ye’re all so fine, I dunno which way to look first!”

Then the boys advanced and greeted the girls with bows, peering closely for some identifying sign, and getting laughed at for their pains.

“Now, here’s yer welcome,” said Uncle Jim. “This is a writ welcome, fer the reason that I ain’t much on expressin’ my thoughts. But I’m right down glad to see ye all!”

Then each received a pretty printed card, decorated with designs of black cats and owls and witches on broomsticks. It read:

Spooks and Spirits we invite

To our party Witches’ night.

And the black cat yowls,

And howls and growls!

And the gray owl hoots,

And To-whits, To-whoots!

And the moon is yellow and big and round

As the pumpkins lying on the ground.

So join our ranks, and come along

To Uncle Jim’s where the witches throng!

This was read with nods of delight and the cards laid away to take home as souvenirs.

Robin Hood stood near Dolly as she finished reading hers, and he politely offered her a pencil to write her name on it for safe-keeping. Then he eagerly leaned over to see what name she wrote.

“O-o-o-o-h!” groaned Dolly in sepulchral tones, and then she wrote Ghost on her card. But she printed it in straggling letters, for she was too canny to show her own penmanship.

Many were the traps laid to learn who was who, but the secrets were, for the most part, well kept.

Lollie Henry was discovered by his familiar laugh and his inability to suppress it.

Maisie May was known, when a lock of her auburn hair escaped from the queer Brownie head-covering. Then, of course, these two being known, they tried to make the others speak.

“Tell me who you are,” Lollie wheedled of the Elf, Bernice. The only answer was a vigorous shake of the green-leaved head.

“Ah, you needn’t tell, I know!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “You’re Dotty Rose! I know by the toss of your head. Aren’t you, now?”

The Elf nodded Yes with such insistence, that Lollie felt sure his guess was wrong.

Dotty as a witch, was in her element. She darted about, tweaking people’s ears, or tapping their arms with her broomstick. She had a funny little cackling laugh, that was so unlike her own voice, it was not recognised, though Dolly soon suspected her.

She hovered about Uncle Jim, teasing him until the old man shook with laughter. “My! what a witch it is!” he exclaimed. “Right from old Salem Town, I’ll be bound!”

They played all the regulation Hallowe’en games. “Thread the Needle,” “Blow the Candle,” and all the well-known ones.

Then Mrs. Rawlins brought in a plate, which she set on the table. “This,” said she, “is a test to see who of you will be married this year. Now, who will try first?”

The girls hung back, and the boys urged them forward. At last, the Fairy flitted up to make the first test.

On the plate was a mound of flour, tightly pressed into shape. Mrs. Rawlins explained the test. “You see,” she said, “the rule is, to fill a bowl with flour, and drop a ring into it. Then press the flour down so tightly, that it will keep its shape when turned out on a plate. Each of you must cut out a slice, and any one who finds the ring will be married this year.”

“Sure?” asked Lollie Henry, laughing.

“Yes, sure,” asserted Mrs. Rawlins, gravely. “Come, Fairy, after I read the charm, cut your slice. Cut it like a pie, and wherever you choose.”

Then Mrs. Rawlins read the charm:

“Little ring within the flour,

Waiting for this witching hour,

Tell me where it is you hide —

On this side or on this side.

Now, with care the knife I bring —

Do I get you, Little ring?

Now I cut! Just at this spot!

Do I get you, Ring—or not?”

The Fairy cut the slice, and all crowded round to learn the result.

“You do not!” exclaimed Lollie, as there was no ring seen in the Fairy’s slice.

One after another, they each cut a slice, and even to the very last one, no one secured the ring.

“Not strange,” said Mrs. Rawlins, calmly, as she took away the plate, “there wasn’t any ring in it! Of course none of you children will be married this year or for many years yet.”

Then a great laugh went up at the way they had been hoaxed, and Lollie said, comically, “Just my luck! I thought I might get a rich wife, who would promise to wait for me till I’m of age!”

CHAPTER X
FORTUNES FOR ALL

It would seem that it would be easy to discover who the spooks were, but the secrets were well kept. And though several suspected that Bernice Forbes was present, not one connected her with the green-robed Elf. And somehow, the Elf was exceedingly popular. She had merry little ways, and was among the foremost ones in any game or trick. She was often chosen as a partner in the Hallowe’en jokes, and when at last it was supper time, when they would all unmask, the Elf was watched with as much if not more interest than the others. The boys chose partners for the march out to the dining-room.

“I’ll take you,” said Lollie Henry, linking his arm in that of the Elf. “I think you’re Dot Rose, and yet, I think that red witch is Dotty, too. But I mostly think you are, so come along.”

The Elf shook her head, hard.

“Does that mean you won’t go with me?”

Another negative shake.

“Oh, it means you’re not Dotty Rose.”

An affirmative nod to this.

“Well, all right, I’ll soon find out who you are. May I, fair Elf, escort you to the Spook Feast?”

Lollie bowed low, and then Bernice accepted his escort and they joined the line of march.

Dolly was with Reggie Stuart, though neither of them knew it, and Dotty was with Tod Brown, in equally blissful ignorance.

They marched to the dining-room, and there awaited them a true Hallowe’en table. Decked with yellow paper and red ribbons, loaded with dainties of all sorts, and crowded with little gnomes, witches, black cats, owls and goblins for souvenirs, it was a welcome sight.

They all took their seats, and at a given signal were bidden to remove their masks.

Mr. Rawlins gave the signal.

“Ready, everybody,” he said. “When I count three, off with your face coverings. You’ve been hidden long enough, and I for one will be glad to see your happy smiles. One, two, three!”

And, already loosened, off came every mask, and the flushed, smiling faces looked eagerly at each other.

Dolly was stunned when her eyes lighted on Bernice, for she had concluded the Elf was really Dotty, and she thought the red witch was Grace.

But more surprised even than Dolly was Lollie Henry. He caught sight of Bernice’s smiling face, and he fairly jumped, as he involuntarily exclaimed, “By Gum!” Then suddenly his good manners came to his rescue, and though disappointed in his partner, he managed to look pleasant, and went on. “This is an unexpected pleasure! I didn’t know you were to be here.”

“And you wish I wasn’t!” Bernice flashed back, for she didn’t misunderstand him.

“Not a bit of it! Haven’t I been chasing the Elf around all the evening?”

“Because you didn’t know it was me.” Bernice’s voice quivered a little. She had been so happy when people were nice to her, and now she caught sight of many surprised and not altogether pleased glances thrown her way.

“But I didn’t know anybody, except red-headed Maisie, when one of her rosy locks came out of her Brownie cap. So how could you expect I’d know you?”

“I didn’t expect it, and I’m glad you didn’t know me, ’cause then you could be nice to me.”

“I can be a whole lot nicer now that I do know you, just you wait and see!”

This speech, and the pleasant smile that accompanied it, were greatly to Lollie’s credit, for he didn’t like Bernice, but having “got into it,” as he expressed it to himself, he was bound to put it through, as he further informed himself, “with a hurrah!”

And so, Lollie laughed and chatted with Bernice as well as with the others near him, and the Elf felt a little better.

But others were not so kind-hearted as Lollie, and, too, they hadn’t his responsibility as a supper partner. So, on the whole, few spoke to Bernice, while all laughed and joked with the others.

Dotty was not sitting near Dolly, but once, when she caught her eye she frowned a little. However, in the gay chatter that was general, no one had much chance to think of personal matters.

Uncle Jim, himself, sat at the head of the table, and Mr. and Mrs. Rawlins at the other end of the wide board.

“This is downright fine!” Uncle Jim said. “I’d like to have a party like this about once or twice a week. I declare I would!”

“You’d get tired of us, sir,” suggested Tod Brown. “We’re not always on such good behaviour.”

“Ain’t, hey? Well, I calk’late you’re always perty good. Good enough, anyway. Don’t want childrun too good.”

“Small danger of that, Uncle Jim,” cried Dolly, laughing. “We’re none of us sprouting wings yet!”

“Except Gracie, there!” and Uncle Jim laughed at his Fairy niece.

“Sure enough, I forgot Grace’s wings. But she’ll moult ’em off to-morrow, and be no more angelic than the rest of us.”

“You’re all good enough for me. I think you’re as fine a lot of little misses and masters as ever I see. I’d like a picture of ye.”

“And you’re going to have one, Uncle,” said Mr. Rawlins, rising from the table.

Soon, with the help of Uncle Jim’s man he had put in position a camera, and bidding them pose, he took two or three flash-light pictures, which caused great exclamations and startled shrieks.

“Those things scare me to death, don’t they you?” said Bernice to Reggie Stuart, who sat at her other side.

“No,” he returned, rather uninterestedly. “I’m sort of used to ’em. I’ve been taken a lot of times that way.”