Two Little Women

"Tell me everything all about it!" cried Pauline Clifton, rushing to meet the two D's on the hotel veranda. "Wasn't it thrilling? Such an experience! My, I wish I had been with you! And Tod Brown was perfectly fine, a real hero!"

"Didn't do a thing," growled Tod, and Tad who was beside him, said, "Wish I'd been there! then we could have sent the girls flying home and stood up to those toughs!"

"Aren't you splendid!" cried Pauline, but Dolly said, in her practical way, "It wouldn't have been splendid at all, it would have been very foolish for you two boys to think of fighting that crowd of great ugly men! It was a case, where the only thing to do, was to submit to their demand and come away. My father says we did just right."

"Of course, it was the only thing to do," said Tod, "but to me it seemed awful galling."

"Well, we'll never go there again," said Dotty; "and it ought to be a lesson to us not to play jokes on people."

"A lesson that you'll never learn," said Dolly, laughing; "you'll have to have worse experiences than that, Dotty Rose, before you stop playing jokes on people."

"Is that so?" cried Carroll Clifton; "then you're a girl after my own heart. I love to play jokes. Let's put our heads together and work up a good one on somebody."

"Well, this joke isn't on us, anyway," said Dotty, laughing. "We have our ten dollars back again, Dolly, and I say we spend them before we get a chance to lose them again."

"But we're going to spend those for something special. You know they are our cake prizes."

"Oho!" cried Carroll, "did you girls take a prize at a cake walk?"

"Not a cake walk, but we took a prize for making cake," Dotty exclaimed; "and I say, Dolly, let's buy something in that shop where we bought the doll. They have beautiful things there of all sorts."

"Come on," said Pauline, "let's all go, and we'll help you pick out things."

So the two Cliftons and the two Browns and the two D's all started for the shop. It was that sort of summer resort bazaar that holds all kinds of fancy knick-knacks for frivolous purchasers.

"Going to get things alike or different?" asked Tod Brown, as they went in.

"Different, of course," said Tad, "Dot and Dolly never like things alike."

"Don't you really?" said Pauline; "how funny! I thought you were such great friends you always had everything just alike."

"No," said Dolly, "we have everything just different. You see our tastes are just about opposite, I expect that's why we're such friends."

Dotty and Carroll were already studying the things at the jewellery counter, while Dolly was slowly but surely making toward the book department.

"Get a picture," suggested Tad, "here are some good water colours of the sea."

"And here's a coloured photograph of that very fishing place where you were at," said Pauline.

All sorts of ridiculous suggestions were made, and the boys offered jumping-jacks and comical toys to the two spenders.

"Why don't you get a lot of little things, instead of one big thing?" said Pauline; "here are some darling slipper buckles, and I think these little flower vases are lovely."

"No," said Dotty, decidedly, "we're each going to get one thing and spend the whole ten dollars for it. And it must be something that we can keep and use."

"I've made up my mind," said Dolly, calmly; "I'm just looking around for fun, but I know perfectly well what I'm going to get. Do you, Dotty?"

"Yes, of course. I decided before I was in the store a minute."

"What?" chorused the others.

"This is mine," and Dotty went back to the jewellery counter and pointed out a silver-gilt vanity-case.

"Well, of all ridiculous things!" cried Tod; "you might as well have let the fishermen keep your money!"

"'Tisn't ridiculous at all!" Dotty retorted. "Mother told me I could get exactly what I wanted, and I want this dreadfully. I've wanted one for a long time. Don't you think it's pretty, Pauline?"

"Yes," returned Pauline, carelessly. "I have two of them, one real gold and one silver. But I hardly ever carry them."

"Oh, well, you can have whatever you want," said Dotty, good-naturedly; "but this is a treat to me, and I think it's lovely, though of course not grand like yours."

So Dotty bought the vanity-case, and then the crowd followed Dolly to see what might be her choice.

Straight to the bookshelves she went, and pointed to a set of fairy stories. They were half a dozen or more volumes bound in various colours and the set was ten dollars.

"I've been just crazy for these books," she said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I would have had them for my birthday, only we had our rooms fixed up; and the minute I spotted them I knew I should buy them."

"What a foolishness!" exclaimed Carroll; "how can you read fairy tales?"

"She loves them," said Dotty; "she'd rather read a fairy story than go to a party, any day."

Dolly laughed and dimpled, but stuck to her decision and soon the crowd left the shop, carrying the important purchases with them.

Back at the hotel, they were exhibited, and Mrs. Fayre and Trudy smiled a little at the selection, but said they were glad that the girls had bought what they wanted.

CHAPTER XX

GOOD-BYE, SUMMER!

Days at Surfwood passed happily and swiftly. Dolly and Dotty often discussed the matter and always agreed that camp life and hotel life were equally pleasant, though in opposite ways. And if Dotty sometimes sighed for the careless freedom of the life in the woods or if Dolly felt in her secret heart that she preferred the more formal conventions of the big hotel, they soon forgot such thoughts in the joys of the moment.

There was seabathing every day and automobile trips and all sorts of beach fun and frolic.

The time was drawing near for them to go back to Berwick and settle down again to the routine of home life.

Among the last of the season's gaieties there was to be a children's dance in the big ball-room. This was a regular summer feature and all the guests of the hotel did their best to make the occasion attractive.

All under sixteen were considered children, and even some of the little tots were allowed to attend the festival. Fancy dress was not obligatory, but many of the young people chose to wear gay costumes.

The two Cliftons, the Brown twins and Dolly and Dotty had come to be a clique by themselves, and were always together.

"Let's dress alike for the silly party," said Clifford, who liked to appear scornful of such amusements, but who was really very fond of them.

"All right; how shall we dress?" said Dotty, who was always ready for dressing up.

"A shepherdess costume is the prettiest thing you can wear," said Pauline. "I have one with me, and it's lovely. S'pose you two girls copy that, and then have the boys rig up something like it."

"Mother will make us any old togs we want," said Tad, "It isn't a masquerade, is it?"