Two Little Women on a Holiday, Carolyn Wells [ink ebook reader .txt] 📗
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“Oh, don’t say insuperable,” urged Mr. Forbes. “Can’t you bring yourself to permit that loss? As Dolly says, the girls can make up their lessons.”
“They can—but will they?”
“I will, mother,” cried Dolly; “I promise you I will study each day while I’m in New York. Then I can recite out of school hours after I get back, and I’ll get my marks all the same.”
“But, Dolly dear, you can’t study while you are in New York. There would be too much to distract you and occupy your time.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Fayre,” observed Bernice, “we couldn’t be all the time sightseeing. I think it would be fine for all us girls to study every day, and keep up our lessons that way.”
“It sounds well, my dear child,” and Mrs. Fayre looked doubtfully at Bernice, “and I daresay you mean to do it, but I can’t think you could keep it up. The very spirit of your life there would be all against study.”
“I agree with that,” said Mr. Forbes, decidedly. “I vote for the girls having an entire holiday. Lessons each day would spoil all their fun.”
“They couldn’t do it,” Trudy said. “I know, however much they tried, they just COULDN’T study in that atmosphere.”
“Why not?” asked Bernice. “We’re not young ladies, like you, Trudy. We won’t be going to parties, and such things. We can only go to the shops and the exhibitions and for motor rides in the park and such things. We could study evenings, I’m sure.”
“It isn’t only the lessons,” Mrs. Fayre said; “but I can’t feel quite willing to let my little girl go away for a week without me.” Her pleasant smile at Mr. Forbes robbed the words of any reflection they might seem to cast on his brother’s invitation. “I’m sure Mrs. Berry would do all that is necessary in the way of a chaperon’s duties, but these girls are pretty young even for that. They need a parent’s oversight.”
Mrs. Fayre was about to say a mother’s oversight, when she remembered that Bernice had no mother, and changed the words accordingly.
There was some further discussion, and then Mrs. Fayre said she must have a little time alone to make up her mind. She knew that if Dolly did not go, Maisie May would be asked in her place, but she still felt undecided. She asked for only an hour or two to think it over, and promised to telephone directly after dinner, and tell Mr. Forbes her final decision. This was the only concession she would make. If not acceptable then her answer must be no.
“Please do not judge my wife too harshly,” said Mr. Fayre as he accompanied Mr. Forbes and Bernice to the door. “She still looks upon Dolly as her baby, and scarcely lets her out of her sight.”
“That’s all right,” returned Mr. Forbes. “She’s the right sort of a mother for the girl. I hope she will decide to let Dolly go, but if not, I quite understand her hesitancy, and I respect and admire her for it. Bernice can take somebody else, and I trust you will not try over hard to influence Mrs. Fayre in Dolly’s favour. If anything untoward should happen, I should never forgive myself. I would far rather the children were disappointed than to have Mrs. Fayre persuaded against her better judgment.”
The Forbeses departed, and then Dotty Rose went home, too.
“Oh, Dollyrinda,” she whispered as they stood in the hall, “do you s’pose your mother’ll EVER say yes?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied Dolly mournfully. “But, oh, Dot, how I do want to go! Seems ‘sif I never wanted anything so much in all my life!”
“You don’t want to go a bit more than I want to have you. Why, Dollops, I shan’t go, if you don’t.”
“Oh, yes, you will, Dotty. You must. It would be silly not to.”
“But I couldn’t! I just COULDN’T. Do you s’pose I could have one single bit of fun going to places without you? And knowing you were here at home, longing to be with us! No-sir-ee! I just couldn’t pos-SIB-ly! So just you remember that, old girl; no Dolly,—no Dotty! And that’s SURE!”
There was a ring in Dotty’s voice that proclaimed an unshakable determination, and Dolly knew it. She knew that no coaxing of Bernice or even of Dolly herself, could make Dotty go without her chum.
For chums these two were, in the deepest sense of the word. They were together all that was possible during their waking hours. They studied together, worked and played together, and occupied together their little house, built for them, and called Treasure House.
Dolly knew she couldn’t enjoy going anywhere without Dotty, and she knew Dot felt the same way about her. But this was such a big, splendid opportunity, that she hated to have Dotty miss it, even if she couldn’t go herself. The two girls said goodnight, and Dolly went back to her family in the library.
“I hate terribly to disappoint you, Dolly darling,” began her mother, and the tears welled up in Dolly’s blue eyes. This beginning meant a negative decision, that was self evident, but Dolly Fayre was plucky by nature and she was not the sort that whines at disappointment.
“All right,” she said, striving to be cheerful, and blinking her eyes quickly to keep those tears back.
“Now, look here, Edith,” said Mr. Fayre, “I don’t believe I can stand this. I don’t differ with you regarding the children, but I do think you might let Dolly go on this party. Even if it does take a week out of school, she’ll get enough general information and experience from a week in the city to make up.”
“That’s just it, Will. But the experiences she gets there may not be the best possible for a little girl of fifteen.”
“Oh, fifteen isn’t an absolute baby. Remember, dear, Dolly is going to grow up some day, and she’s getting started.”
“And another thing. I asked Mr. Forbes a few questions while you were talking to Bernice, and it seems this other girl, the niece, Alicia, is attending a very fashionable girls’ boarding school.”
“Well, what of that? You speak as if she were attending a lunatic asylum!”
“No; but can’t you see if Dolly goes to stay a week with wealthy Bernice Forbes and this fashionable Alicia, she’ll get her head full of all sorts of notions that don’t belong there?”
“No, I won’t, mother,” murmured Dolly, who, again on her mother’s arm chair, was looking earnestly into the maternal blue eyes, so like her own. And very lovingly Mrs. Fayre returned the gaze, for she adored her little daughter and was actuated only by the best motives in making her decisions.
“And, here’s another thing,” said Dolly, “Dot won’t go, if I don’t. It seems too bad to spoil HER fun.”
“Oh, yes, she will,” said Mrs. Fayre, smiling. “She would be foolish to give up her pleasure just because you can’t share it.”
“Foolish or not, she won’t go,” repeated Dolly. “I know my Dot, and when she says she won’t do a thing, she just simply doesn’t do it!”
“I’d be sorry to be the means of keeping Dotty at home,” and Mrs. Fayre sighed deeply.
All through dinner time, Mrs. Fayre was somewhat silent, her eyes resting on Dolly with a wistful, uncertain expression. She wanted to give the child the pleasure she craved, but she had hard work to bring herself to the point of overcoming her own objections.
At last, however, when the meal was nearly over, she smiled at her little daughter, and said, “All right, Dolly, you may go.”
“Oh, mother!” Dolly cried, overwhelmed with sudden delight. “Really? Oh, I am so glad! Are you sure you’re willing?”
“I’ve persuaded myself to be willing, against my will,” returned Mrs. Fayre, whimsically. “I confess I just hate to have you go, but I can’t bear to deprive you of the pleasure trip. And, as you say, it would also keep Dotty at home, and so, altogether, I think I shall have to give in.”
“Oh, you angel mother! You blessed lady! How good you are!” And Dolly flew around the table and gave her mother a hug that nearly suffocated her.
“There, there, Dollygirl,” said her father, “go back and finish your pudding while we talk this over a bit. Are you sure, Edith, you are willing? I don’t want you to feel miserable and anxious all the week Dolly is cut loose from your apron string.”
“No, Will; it’s all right. If you and the Roses and Trudy, here, all agree it’s best for Dolly to go, it seems foolish for me to object. And it may be for her good, after all.”
“That’s what I say, mother,” put in Trudy. “Doll isn’t a child, exactly. She’s fifteen and a half, and it will be a fine experience for her to see a little bit of the great world. And she couldn’t do it under better conditions than at Mr. Forbes’ brother’s. The Forbes’ are a fine family, and you know, perfectly well, there’ll be nothing there that isn’t just exactly right.”
“It isn’t that, Trudy. But,—oh, I don’t know; I daresay I’m a foolish mother bird, afraid of her littlest fledgling.”
“You’re a lovely mother-bird!” cried Dolly, “and not foolish a bit! but, oh, do decide positively, for I can’t wait another minute to tell Dot, if I’m going.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Fayre, “run along and tell Dotty, and Bernice, too.”
Dolly made a jump and two hops for the telephone, and soon the wires must have bent under the weight of joyous exclamations.
“Oh, Dolly, isn’t it fine!”
“Oh, Dotty, it’s splendid! I can hardly believe it!”
“Have you told Bernice?”
“Not yet. Had to tell you first. When do we go?”
“Next Tuesday, I think. Now, you tell Bernie, so she can write to her uncle that we accept.”
And then there was another jubilation over the telephone.
“Fine!” cried Bernice, as she heard the news. “Lovely! I’d so much rather have you two girls than any others. I’ll write Uncle Jeff to-night that I’ll bring you. And I’ll come over tomorrow, and we’ll decide what clothes to take, and all that.”
Mrs. Fayre sighed, as Dolly reported this conversation.
“You girls can’t do a bit of serious study all the rest of the time before you go,” she said. “Now, Dolly, I’ll have to ask you to do your lessons every day, before you plan or talk over the trip at all.”
“Yes, mother, I will,” and Dolly started at once for her schoolbooks.
It was hard work to put her mind on her studies, with the wonderful possibilities that lay ahead of her. But she was exceedingly conscientious, was Dolly Fayre, and she resolutely put the subject of the New York visit out of her mind, and did her algebra examples with diligence.
Not so, Dotty Rose. After Dolly’s telephone message, she flung her schoolbooks aside, with a shout of joy, and declared she couldn’t study that night.
“I don’t wonder,” laughed her father. “Why, Dot, you’re going on a veritable Fairy-tale visit. You are quite justified in being excited over it.”
“I thought you and Dolly didn’t like Bernice Forbes very much,” said Mrs. Rose.
“We didn’t use to, mother. But lately, she’s been a whole lot nicer. You know Doll made her sort of popular, and after that, she helped along, herself, by being ever so much more pleasant and chummy with us all. She used to be stuck up and disagreeable; ostentatious about being rich, and all that. But nowadays, she’s more simple, and more agreeable every way.”
“That’s nice,” observed Mr. Rose. “Forbes is not a popular
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