Part 56 (1/2)

Mr. Graham turned his head with a sharp look at d.i.c.k, who immediately, getting very red, pretended to be picking up something under the table.

”I didn't say _anything_ about _any_ man!” said Dorothy, appealing all round. ”Mother, can't I have a costume from Chelmsford?”

”No, dear,” said Mrs. Graham coldly; ”this one is ordered.”

”d.i.c.k is right, Dolly,” said her father. ”Don't you see it is the people who have had the _fire_ we should pity? And is it not bad enough to have their place burnt, without losing their customers?”

Dorothy sulked. She thought every one was very unkind, and it seemed the last straw when father took d.i.c.k's part against her.

It was time for Mr. Graham to go to town. He had eaten scarcely any breakfast, and Mrs. Graham, who had been anxiously watching him, had eaten none at all, but things of this sort children don't often notice.

When he pa.s.sed his little girl's chair, he put his hand kindly on her shoulder, and the tears that had been so near welled into her eyes.

”Poor Dolly!” Mr. Graham said presently, as he reached for his hat, ”everything seems of a piece.” And he gave a great sigh.

Mrs. Graham always went as far as the gate with him, and he thought they were alone in the hall, but d.i.c.k had followed them to the dining-room door. It was holiday-time, yet d.i.c.k was going to Chelmsford for an examination. He had come out intending to ask his father before he went to London for half a crown. d.i.c.k was just at the age when schoolboys try to appear exactly the reverse from what they are. He squabbled constantly with Dorothy, though he loved her very much, and now, when he heard his father sigh, he put his hands in his pockets as if he didn't care about anything, and went upstairs whistling.

When d.i.c.k got to his room, he took a money-box from the mantelpiece and smashed it open with the poker. He had been saving up for a new bat, and the box contained seven s.h.i.+llings. He put the money in his pocket and ran down again in a great hurry.

”d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k!” exclaimed his mother, catching him. ”Come here! Let me brush your collar. How rough your hair is! d.i.c.k, you must have a new hat! You can't go into the hall with that one.”

”All serene, mother,” said the boy, submitting impatiently to be overhauled. ”I can buy a new hat and pitch the old one away.”

”How grandly some people talk!” said his mother, pinching his ear. ”As if the world belonged to them. Well, never mind, dear boy! If you get on well and _pa.s.s_, no one will remember your hat was shabby. Have you got your fare?”

[Sidenote: A Telegram]

”Oh, mother, how you _do_ worry!” exclaimed d.i.c.k, wrenching himself away; ”I've got lots of money--_heaps_!”

He ran across the lawn, and just because he knew she was watching, jumped right over the azalea-bushes and wire fence instead of going out at the gate, and yet the tired look went out of Mrs. Graham's eyes, and a smile crept round her mouth as she watched him.

Dorothy, standing at the dining-room window, saw him go too, and thought how horrid it was of d.i.c.k to look so glad when she was so unhappy.

”Boys are always like that,” she thought. ”They don't care a bit about any one but themselves.”

Mrs. Graham came back into the room holding a telegram in her hand which she tore open quickly. Her face went red and then rather white.

”What is it, mother?” said Dorothy eagerly. ”Have they arrived?”

”They have been in London two days,” said Mrs. Graham, with a curious catch in her breath, and she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

”They want me up for a day's shopping. If I had known, I could have gone with father.”

Dorothy stood staring at her mother with wide-open eyes. Half a dozen castles in the air seemed tumbling about her head at the same time.

They were expecting her mother's cousins over from America. Dorothy had been chattering about them to the girls at school all the term, and it was in honour of these very cousins she was having her first Bond Street costume. Her mother had not said that was the reason, but Dorothy knew it. She had a _sweet_, really _big_ hat too, with tiny rosebuds, and new gloves and boots. As a rule her mother was not particular about getting everything new at the same time, but she had taken enough pains this time to please Dorothy herself.

”They do dress children so at Boston,” Dorothy had overheard her mother say to Mr. Graham, as a sort of excuse. ”I should like Dollie to look nice.”

And from that one sentence Dorothy had conjured up all sorts of things about these wonderful cousins. Of course she thought they were coming to stay with them. She expected there would be girls of her own age, and that they would be so charmed with their English cousin that they would invite her to go back to Boston with them. She had talked about them, and thought about them so much that she imagined her mother had _told_ her all this, but really Mrs. Graham, who talked very little, didn't know much about her cousins herself, so she could not have given her little daughter all this information if she had been inclined to.