During the half hour that Lady Betty favored them with her presence, no mention was made of Orilla. It was all a jumbling talk of what to get Rosa in Europe, and what Rosa should do while they were away.

“You see, Nancy dear,” said Mrs. Betty. “I left my little pet Pompsie—”

“Her dog,” interrupted Rosa.

“Rosa-linda!” exclaimed her father, rebukingly.

“Well, how would Nancy know—”

“I left my little dog with my sister, because Rosa might forget and lock him out on the roof some night. He adores to play on the roof—”

Then Margot appeared with a very small silver tray. It held a card which she handed to Lady Betty.

88 “Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Fred, there’s the Prestons. Suppose you go down, like a love, while I slip into something. Rosa and Nancy be good girls. Nancy, your name is a hymn to me, it was also my grandmother’s. She was a cameo lady, beautiful beyond words.”

“No relation to our Nancy, then,” again spoke the impish Rosa.

Both girls were brazenly glad when their elders were gone, and in spite of Margot’s unwelcome ministrations, Rosa hopped out of bed, pushed Margot outside, shut the door, turned the key and undertook to execute an original dance, sort of “skippity-hop-to-the-barber-shop” fashion.

“Now you see, you see,” she paused to tell Nancy, “just what I’m up—against!”

“Rosalind Fernell!” exclaimed Nancy. “Do you know you are just too silly for anything?”

“Maybe I am.” The girl with the flying scarf came to a very abrupt stop and seemed to confront Nancy. “But I just want to tell you I can’t love Betty. She’s too dollified. Makes me feel like a—like a clown.” The89 voice, usually so flippant, had suddenly become almost tragic. “And that’s why, Nancy Brandon,” continued the indignant Rosa, “I’m going to become less—clownish!”

“Rosa!”

Tears, tears unmistakable had gathered in the soft blue eyes, and Nancy was panic stricken at their appearance. She couldn’t bear to cry herself, and she hated even worse than that to see any one else cry. And now, here was Rosa on the verge!

“I’ve just got to have it out!” moaned Rosa, dropping down again into her pillows. “Every time I see her I feel just the same. Oh, why couldn’t daddy be satisfied with me? We were such—such—chums—”

Nancy felt too much like agreeing with this to offer any sensible advice, but she felt called upon to try.

“I’m sure she loves you, Rosa. You just think she’s selfish—”

“Don’t—go—preaching. I just hate it, Nancy. And I’ve got an awful—temper.”

“So have I,” calmly replied Nancy.

90 This brought Rosa’s tear-stained face up from the pillows.

“Have you—honestly? That’s because we’re real cousins. Of course, Betty isn’t any real relation to me.” Rosa seemed very glad of that.

“Guess we are something alike,” persisted Nancy, glad to change the subject. “We’ve both got—big—mouths—”

This was too much for Rosa. She simply roared, shouted, laughing, as so often a tiny child will, in the very face of its own tears.

“Big mouths!” she repeated. “Haven’t we, though? Big, long, square mouths like, like prize fighters.”

“No,” objected Nancy, “like Abraham Lincoln’s—”

This precipitated another gale of laughter, and only the insistent knocking, known to be Margot’s, for her voice accompanied the demand, brought the two girls back from their gleeful frolic.

“You are coming down to dinner,” ordered Margot, trying to make sure that her command91 would be obeyed.

“I certainly am not,” fired back Rosa.

“But why? You can walk. I even heard you dance—”

“You ought to see me dance, Margot,” answered the irrepressible Rosa. “Hearing me, isn’t the half of it. Seeing me is well worth while. But, Margot,” down dropped Rosa’s tone to one of entreaty, “you be a lamb, and fix up a gor-gee-ous tray for me and Nancy. Just this once, Margot. You know how I feel—”

“Rosalind, I’m honestly afraid that Mrs. Fernell will blame me for your conduct.” Margot drew her lips into so straight a line they didn’t look like lips at all.

“Do come down, Rosa,” pleaded Nancy, feeling very uncomfortable because of this willful girl’s obstinacy. It was bad enough to be away from home, but to have to keep up this battle seemed unreasonable to Nancy.

“Not to-night. Please don’t any one ask me,” and again tears threatened Rosa’s eyes. “If you don’t want to bother with my tray,92 Margot, just ask Baldy when he has time. There’s—no—hurry—”

This appeal brought about the result plainly desired by Rosa, for not only did Margot agree to the request, but she went much further. She wrote out the dinner menu, and from this list of fine food Rosa made her selection, first politely consulting Nancy’s taste.

“We live so differently,” explained Nancy, who was now losing much of the natural timidity following her introduction into this home. “You see, we don’t even keep a maid—”

“Oh, how jolly!” declared Rosa. “They’re a set of spies.”

“You don’t mean that, Rosa,” defended Nancy. “Why should a girl, who happens to be a maid, in any way be inferior—”

“Because she’s a maid,” insisted Rosa.

“But if you had to work, for instance, what would you be?”

“I’d run a beauty parlor,” declared Rosa, thu............