Two Little Women

Dotty was not quite so smilingly gracious, but she had a strong sense of justice and she said, "They are big enough, Pauline, I was mistaken," and then the dancing began.

There were only simple dances as the children had not mastered the intricacies of modern steps, and there was much fun and gay good-natured banter. The Shepherds and Shepherdesses danced first with each other, but later others joined them and the clan separated.

But the last dance before supper Dolly danced with Carroll Clifton.

At the finish they sat for a moment under some palms to rest, and Carroll took off his cap and held it in his hand.

As a matter of fact, Dolly had forgotten all about the cap discussion, but suddenly her eyes fell on the inside of the cap, as Carroll held it carelessly upside down on his knee.

She could hardly believe her eyes, but she looked again and sure enough, she was right! A full inch of material had been let into the band at the back to make it larger. Dolly stared at it, and then taking the cap, as if to admire it, she said, "I wonder if this is the one I made. You know we girls made the shepherd caps, and I hope you're duly grateful."

"Yes, nice cap-makers you are!" said Carroll, banteringly. "They were so little we couldn't get them on. I told Polly and she gathered them in last night and took them up to her room and made them bigger. I guess she spent half the night doing it, for her light was burning pretty late."

Dolly said nothing, but a wave of indignation swept over her to think Pauline should so deceive her. To think she should be so small and petty as when she found herself in the wrong to secretly rectify her own mistake and then triumphantly announce to the girls that the caps were big enough after all!

Of course they were big enough, after she had set a piece in each one! Dolly smiled to herself to think what an undertaking it must have been, for that alteration, and it was done neatly, meant a troublesome bit of ripping and sewing.

Carroll looked at her inquiringly.

"Well," he said, "is it the one you made? You seem desperately interested in it!"

"I don't know whether it's the one or not. But it doesn't matter, they're all alike. Put it on, Carroll, they're all going out to supper now, and it spoils your costume not to wear it."

Supper was a gay feast. It was the one occasion of the year when the children were allowed in the dining-room at night, and there were snapping-crackers and especial varieties of cakes and ices and jellies suited to juvenile tastes.

After supper the young guests were supposed to say good-night and the party was over.

As they went upstairs, Dolly pulled Dotty back beside her, and at the same moment whispered to Tod to let her take his cap.

Unnoticed by any one else, Dolly showed Dotty the piecing inside, and putting her finger on her lip, shook her head as an admonition to be silent. Then she returned the cap to Tod, who hadn't noticed the incident especially, and on the upper landing of the great staircase, the children said their gay good-nights and went off to their various apartments.

"Now, what do you think of that?" said the fair-haired Shepherdess, not waiting to take off her fancy costume, but pulling the black-haired Shepherdess down to the window-seat beside her.

This was the spot where the girls sat nearly every night to talk over the events of the day. The wide velvet-cushioned seat with its many pillows, was cosy and comfortable, and the view of the ocean and the sound of the rolling waves made these evening chats very happy and confidential.

"But I don't understand," said Dotty, looking puzzled. "You motioned for me not to speak a word, so I didn't. But what does it mean? Who put that piece in Tod's cap, his mother?"

"No; Pauline did it! She sneaked those caps away to her room last night, and sat up till all hours piecing those pieces in. And a sweet job she must have had of it! Why, it's about as much trouble to piece a thing like that, as to make a whole cap!"

"Pauline did it?" still Dotty couldn't understand. "Why, she said this evening that the caps were all right and big enough."

"Of course they were, after she pieced the bands out longer! She did it herself, Dotty, and then pretended to us that they were just as we had left them. At least she meant us to think that, for she said, 'Now don't you see they're all right?' and she didn't tell us she had fixed them."

"How do you know she did it? Maybe Mrs. Brown or Liza did it."

"Carroll told me Polly did it herself. After she went to her room last night. He says her light was burning awful late because she had to fix the three caps."

"The deceitful girl! If that isn't the limit! Just wait till I see her, I'll tell her what I think of her!"

"Now, Dotty, that's just what I don't want you to do. I knew how you'd feel about this thing, and honest, at first I thought I wouldn't tell you, 'cause if I hadn't, you never would have known. But we never do have secrets from each other, and so when I found it out, I thought I ought to tell you. But I don't want you to quarrel with Pauline about it. Won't you let it go, Dot, and never say anything to her on the subject?"

"No, I won't, Dolly. She told a story, or if she didn't tell it right out, she made us think what wasn't true, and it's just the same. She ought to be shown up. Tod and Tad and her own brother, too, ought to know what a mean thing she did. It's only justice, Dolly, that they should. You're so easy-going you'd forgive anything and forget it, too! But I can't. I've got to tell that Clifton girl what I think of her. Oh, I never heard of such meanness! Why Dollyrinda Fayre, – you or I would scorn to do such a thing!"

"Of course we would, Dot, but I don't know as it's up to us to tell Pauline Clifton what she ought to do."

"It isn't that, Dolly; we're not her teachers, and I don't care what she does, – to other people. But she needn't think she can do a thing like that, and act as if we didn't know anything, when we told her she was wrong, and then when she finds she is wrong to go and fix it up on the sly and pretend she was right all along! No-sir-ee! I won't stand for it. I'll show her up in all her meanness and deceit and I'll do it before the boys, too. She ought to be made to feel cheap! The idea!"

Dolly waited in silence until Dotty's wrath had spent itself. She had known Dotty would act like this, but she hoped to calm her justifiable anger.

"Well, all right, Dot," she said at last; "then if you still persist in quarrelling with Pauline about this thing, and if you won't agree not to say anything to her about it, then I'm going to ask you not to, just for my sake. I don't often ask you a favour seriously, Dotty Rose, but I do now. If you're a friend of mine and if you really care anything about me, won't you promise, just because I ask it, not to say anything to Pauline about those caps?"

The two Shepherdesses faced each other in silence. Both were sitting cross-legged in Turkish fashion on the wide divan, and as they had not turned on their room lights, only the moonlight that streamed across the ocean illumined the two earnest faces.

Fair-haired Dolly was pale in her earnestness and her blue eyes looked beseechingly at her friend.

The black-haired Shepherdess was flushed with anger. Her crook had fallen to the floor and she had tossed her hat beside it. Her black eyes snapped and her curly head shook as she refused Dolly's request. But the pleading voice kept on, until at last kindness conquered, and Dotty Rose gave in.

"All right, you dear old thing," she cried, as she grabbed Dolly round the neck, "you've a Heavenly disposition, and I'm a horrid, ugly thing, but I'll do as you say, because you ask me to."

"You're not ugly, Dotty, a bit; only you have a high temper, and your sense of justice makes you feel like getting even with people. And I don't say you're not right. Why, of course there is such a thing as righteous indignation, and this may be the place for it. Only, I do want to have my way this time. You see, we're going home day after to-morrow, and very likely we'll never see the Cliftons again, after we leave here. They don't come here every summer like we do. And I hate to spoil these two last days with a horrid squabble, when we six have been so nice and chummy and pleasant all the time we've been here. You needn't have much to do with Pauline, if you don't want to, but just for two days, can't you just be decently polite to her, and not say anything about this business?"

"I can and I will," said Dotty, heartily; "but you needn't think, old lady, that it's because I'm a meek and mild little lamb, and don't feel like telling that girl what I think of her! No, sir! It's because, – well first because you ask me to; and second, because I'm the guest of you and your people, and it wouldn't be a bit nice of me to stir up an unpleasantness that probably everybody would know about. So, unless Miss Pauline Clifton refers to it herself, she'll never hear of that cap subject from me!"

"You're an old trump, Dotty, and I love you a million bushels! And I'm glad we're going home so soon, and oh, just think! we'll start off to school together, and we'll both go to High School, and we'll have just the same lessons, and we'll be together every day. Dotty Rose, I'm glad I've got you for a friend!"

"You're not half as glad as I am, Dolly Fayre!"

"We'll always be friends, whatever happens, won't we?" said Dolly; "and we'll always tell each other everything."

"Always and always!" said the other Shepherdess, and they sealed their compact with a kiss.

And the big, round-faced moon smiled at them across the night-blue ocean, and tried to make up his mind which of the two D's he was more fond of.

THE END