air that was--that was--" But Jimmy could find no words to express adequately his feelings on this point, and finished up suddenly in his wrath and disappointment, "Dolly, you are the biggest bully I ever met.

If you were a boy amongst boys, you'd get a licking!"

"Children, children, stop quarrelling, right here in public!" admonished Mrs. Dering, in a low, shocked tone.

"'Tisn't me that's quarrelling," said Dolly, regardless of grammar and in a tearful sniffle. "Jimmy's always setting me up to do things for him, and then he's al-al-always finding fault with the way I do 'em,"

Dolly went on, in a still more tearful sniffle.

"Setting you up to do things for him? What did he set you up to do now?"

asked her aunt.

"To introduce him to Hope. He wanted to know her, he wanted to hear her play; and I"--sniff, sniff, sniff--"I--"

"Well, there, never mind; tell me when we get into the carriage," broke in Mrs. Dering, mindful of the proprieties, as she saw several persons observing Dolly.

"Yes, don't cry on the street,--you might get taken up for a nuisance, Dol; a policeman's got his eye on you now," growled Jimmy, with a savage little grin. Dolly had a queer, childish way of accepting everything seriously sometimes; and the startled seriousness of her face at this was too much for Jimmy's gravity, and he burst into a fit of laughter that cleared the atmosphere not a little, and made Dolly herself forget to sniffle. She forgot also to air her grievance against Jimmy, when, as they were seated in the carriage, her aunt said animatedly,--

"Benham--I wonder if this girl is the daughter of a Mr. and Mrs. Benham I met when I was in Paris."

"Her father and mother are in Paris now; that is the reason why Hope doesn't spend her vacations with them," said Dolly.

"This Mr. Benham was a distinguished scientific man of some sort, I believe. He was distinguished for _something_, I know, and he was with scientific men. I met him at Professor Hervey's, and he came into the room, I remember, with two or three English gentlemen of note. I recollect it, because I know I felt quite proud at the time that he was an American,--he looked so manly and earnest,--and some one told me he had just had a fortune come to him."

"Well, Hope's father must have a lot of money, for she's got a violin that cost enough. It's a regular Cremona."

"No!" exclaimed Jimmy, incredulously.

"Yes; she told me it was made by an Italian who was a pupil of Stradivari and lived in Cremona."

"You don't say so!" cried Jimmy, excitedly. "How I should like to see it, for I tell you to see a real old Cremona would be worth while. Lots of people think they've got a Cremona, when it's only an imitation. Karl Myerwitz, who makes violins, and knows all about them, told me that if everybody who claims to have a Cremona violin, _really_ had one, the number of them would count up to twice as many as had ever been made."

"Well, all I know is that Hope told me that her violin was made in seventeen hundred and something by a pupil of Stradivari."

"Where did her father get it, do you know,--did she tell you that?"

"An old teacher of hers got it,--a German who has a brother who deals in rare violins in Paris."

"How soon did she begin to take lessons?"

"Oh, when she was quite a little girl."

"What kind of music--whose compositions, I mean, does she play?"

Dolly rattled off what she knew of Hope's repertoire.

"Well, she _must_ have been at it from a small youngster," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jimmy, emphatically, at the list Dolly gave. "And she must have a great--a _great_ taste for music. The idea of your thinking I would play with any one who was up to what she is!"

"But you play very well,--you play better than I do."

"What's that to do with it? You don't mean to say that you think--that you propose--" But Jimmy stopped short, remembering the recent outbreak of sniffles and tears. But he had gone far enough for Dolly to understand, and she took up his words, not tearfully, but indignantly, as she replied,--

"I do mean to say that I propose to play a duet with Hope at school this very winter."

"Is it a school arrangement,--Miss Marr's plan? I didn't know that you studied the violin at Miss Marr's."

"Well, we do, if we wish to. There is a teacher, a very fine teacher, who comes in from the outside for that, as there is for the harp, or any other special accomplishment."

"Oh! and Miss Benham wants you to practise with her,--I suppose you can help each other,--I see," remarked Jimmy, demurely.

"I didn't say she wanted me to _practise_ with her. I said that I proposed to play a duet with Hope sometime this winter."

Jimmy made no further remark concerning the matter, but he said to himself: "Yes, that's it; Dolly has had the nerve to _propose_ to play a duet with that girl, and my opinion is that she'll get snubbed. Miss Hope Benham isn't going to stand Dolly's impudence,--not a bit of it."

"What concert is it, Jimmy, that comes off on Wednesday?" suddenly asked Mrs. Dering here.

"I don't know of any except that affair at the Somersets'."

"Oh, that for Mr. Kolb! I wish I had been told of that earlier. I only heard about it at the last minute, and then I couldn't get any ticket for love or money."

"Mamma tried to get tickets too," said Dolly, "but they seemed to be all snapped up at the very start by that Somerset clique. I think it was real mean. There are other people in Boston, besides the Somersets, that know about music, and can appreciate--"

"But there was a limit of tickets,--there had to be; for Mrs. Somerset's parlors, big as they are, can only hold just so many," put in Jimmy, in explanation.

"Your young friend may be going to this concert," suggested Mrs. Dering, reflectively.

Dolly bounced up like an India-rubber ball at this suggestion, and cried out,--

"Why, of course that's where she's going, I might have known it." And then Dolly leaned back discontentedly, and reflected upon the good fortune that seemed to attend Hope Benham at every step. There was Kate Van der Berg lavishing all sorts of attentions upon her; and here was this testimonial concert that the Somersets had got up for Mr. Kolb, and that everybody was pining to go to, open to her! "Wonder who she is visiting, anyway," Dolly pondered, in the course of these reflections,--"perhaps the Somersets themselves,--'twould be just like her luck."

And while Dolly pondered these things, Mrs. Dering mused with regret of what her musicale had lost, and Jimmy chuckled anew as he recalled "that girl's" high and mighty manner with Dolly. But his chuckle ended in a sigh, as he thought: "It's of no use for me to expect to hear that girl play; Dolly has spoilt all that."

CHAPTER XVI.

It was "New Year's night" at Miss Marr's, and every girl was as bright and fresh as if the night before she had not watched the old year out and the new year in; for the happiness of it all, and the long morning rest had been like a tonic.

"_Didn't_ we have a good time last night!" exclaimed Myra Donaldson, in a sort of general questioning tone, as she stood with a group of the girls by the big hall-fire, just before the hour appointed for the guests to a.s.semble.

"A tip-top time, for that kind of a time," answered Dolly, speaking first, in her usual forward fashion.

"What do you mean by 'that kind of a time'?" asked Myra.

"I mean a girl-party. It was the best girl-party I ever went to; but I like parties best with boys in 'em, just as I like cake best with currants or raisins in it."

The girls all laughed; and Kate Van der Berg called out: "The boys then stand for the currants and raisins with you, Dorothea?"