"Very well, then, Miss Rosalie, decide for yourself. I think you get
along better on your own responsibility anyhow. Puzzle it out for
yourself, go or not, just as you think best."
"Then I shall go," said Rosalie positively, and she went into the hall
for her hat. "You think it is quite all right for me to go then, Doris?"
"I do not think one single thing about it."
"But you will not object if I go?"
"I shall not even mention it."
"Everybody else goes, and they are just as good as we are--better than
Zee and I."
"Perhaps."
"Oh, you bad General, you make me so cross," cried Rosalie, tossing
her hat to the floor. "Why didn't you just say I couldn't go--I never
disobey you, do I? Or why didn't you say I could go, then if my
conscience hurt me I could say it was your fault. Now you have spoiled
the whole thing!"
Rosalie ran to the telephone and called a number in a voice unruffled
and sweet.
"I can not go, Bud. It is really quite a party, you know, and Sunday is
the Sabbath for us preachers. It was just dear of you to bother with
me--I should think you must be tired of trying to be nice to a cranky
old preachy crowd."
Then she listened a moment while he voiced fervent denials.
"Oh, that is nice of you, Bud, and I know I should have loved it, but
you see how it is, don't you?"
A moment later she gave a gleeful little cry, "Oh, truly, Bud, would
you enjoy that? I am sure it will be all right--wait a minute, till I
ask Doris. Oh, Doris, he says he does not care to go, and his brother
has given him the runabout for the rest of the day, and he wants me to
go for a quiet little drive with him, and-- Is that all right? Oh, you
darling General!"
"Of course it is all right, and ask him to come to supper here,
Rosalie, and go to Endeavor with us."
So Rosalie gurgled rapturously into the transmitter and received a
hearty acceptance, and then flung her arms around her smiling sister.
"Oh, General, I am so glad we decided it that way. I know they would
dance--a little--I would not, of course--but I do love to drive, and
I don't get a chance very often, and Bud is always so good to me. Will
you have something a little bit kind of extra nice for supper?" And
Rosalie danced off up the stairs, singing merrily.
Doris smiled and sighed in relief. "That settles Rosalie for this
afternoon. The other girls will be up and going in a minute, I suppose,
the game must be nearly over. But it is a whole lot to have Rosalie
fixed."
At that moment Treasure picked up the cards and began putting them into
the box, and Zee walked slowly but proudly to the kitchen. A second
later Doris heard the tinkling of pennies, and Zee came back into the
room.
"What were you doing, Babe?"
"Putting some pennies in the mission box," came the even answer.
"What shall we do now, Doris? We don't want to play any more."
"Haven't you something to read?"
"We've read everything in the house a dozen times. May we go over to
Grahams'?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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