"Yes, for she hasn't received her invitation at all, you understand,"

answered Hope, thinking that Bessie had _not_ understood.

"Yes?" began Bessie, and then stopped, her eyes cast down and the color coming into her cheeks, while Hope and Kate glanced at each other in embarra.s.sed silence. What _did_ it mean? What _could_ be the matter?

They were wildly conjecturing all sorts of strange impossible things, and Hope was just determining to break the dreadful silence with these very questions, when Bessie looked up and said:

"I'll tell you--I _must_ tell you; there wasn't any mistake--I knew that Dorothea had no invitation."

"Oh!" breathed Hope, faintly; and "Oh!" echoed Kate, in the same tone.

"No, it was meant that she shouldn't have one; but I had written one, and I was going to send it if--if my mother hadn't stopped it."

"Your mother?"

"Yes, my mother. I had already sent out quite a number of invitations, and had just got another lot ready, when my mother came in and saw Dorothea's name on one of the notes. The moment she saw it, she forbade me to send it. Mother was at the New Year's party,--perhaps you remember,--just at the last of it, when Dorothea was going on so, and she took a great dislike to Dorothea then. Dorothea _was_ noisy, you know. Mother thought she was very loud and underbred. But that--that wasn't all. A little while ago some acquaintances of ours from Philadelphia--the Cargills--were staying at the Waldorf. The next day after they arrived, they went to a matinee at the Madison Square Theatre, and saw there my brother Raymond, and with him a young girl. Of course they thought the girl was some member of our family; and when he went to speak to them, they asked him if that was another sister he had with him, and he told them no; that it was only an acquaintance,--a girl who was in a boarding-school in the city. Mrs. Cargill thought this was very odd; and as Raymond was so young, she spoke about it to mamma.

Mamma was astonished, and she went straight to Raymond and asked him what it all meant, and who the girl was; and Raymond had to tell the whole story then,--that it was Dorothea Dering, from Miss Marr's school; that he had invited her to go to the matinee with him, and that she had accepted the invitation; and then that he had met her at the skating-pond in Central Park, and had gone from there with her to the theatre, unsuspected by any of the teachers. The minute mamma heard the name, 'Dorothea Dering,' she recalled the New Year's party and Dorothea's behavior there; and so, and so, don't you see, when she saw Dorothea's name on the envelope, the other day, she thought of all these things, and--and forbade my sending the note. I tried my best to get her to let me send it; I told her what Anna Fleming had said to me,--that Dorothea came from one of the first families of Ma.s.sachusetts; that her father was the Hon. James Dering, and all her people were in the very best society. But the more I tried to talk Dorothea up in this way, the more decided mamma grew; until, at last, she said that there had been too much of this falling back upon one's family nowadays; that bad, loud manners and rude behavior were not to be overlooked and excused on that account, and that she didn't propose to overlook Dorothea's by having her invited to her house. And when I said I thought that Raymond was as much to blame, in _asking_ her to go to the matinee, as Dorothea was in going, mamma said that that didn't help her case at all; that Raymond's invitation was only the result of her own loud, free ways; that he would never have thought of inviting her like that, if she had been a different kind of girl. Oh,"--with a quick look at Hope and Kate,--"mamma didn't altogether exonerate Raymond; she didn't think he was altogether right, by any means; but then she does think--and so do I, girls--that boys and young men are apt to treat a girl a good deal as the girl treats them; and--and--Dorothea _was_ too forward with Raymond.

I saw it myself from the first; and she led him on,--she encouraged him to treat her as he wouldn't have treated either of you two. She thought he admired just those free, foolish ways of hers; but he didn't,--he was only amused by them. Oh, I know Raymond; and I know if he had seen _me_ going on with any one as Dorothea did, he would have scolded me well. It wouldn't have amused him to have seen his sister going on so, to have seen _me_ amusing any one like that. But, Hope, Kate, all the same, I felt dreadfully at leaving Dorothea out,--dreadfully, for there I'd sent off almost all the school invitations; there was no getting them back.

If I could have got them back, I would; and--yes, truly, I wouldn't have sent any invitations to any one at Miss Marr's, if I had known I had got to cut Dorothea. No; I wouldn't have sent one, and then I could have explained it to the rest of you privately, or I could have said I couldn't make so large a party this year. Yes, I would certainly have done this if it hadn't been too late,--if mamma had only seen and stopped Dorothea's invitation before the other school notes had been sent. Yes, I would have done just that; and not because I'm at all fond of Dorothea, but because I hate to hurt anybody's feelings, and to--to make such a time. I should have gone back to school this week if it hadn't been for this happening; but I'm not going now until after the party, and I may not go until next term if my father will take me away with him to Florida, where he is going next month; and I hope, oh, I hope he will!" And here suddenly, to Hope and Kate's astonishment, this quiet, self-contained Bessie Armitage covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

"Oh, Bessie! Bessie!" broke forth Hope and Kate, with a warm outrushing of sympathy, and a desire to say something comforting,--"oh, Bessie, Bessie!" and then suddenly they both stopped, for what could they say further without saying something that would seem like a protest against Mrs. Armitage's decision,--that, in fact, _would_ be a protest, for both girls were protesting in their hearts at that moment, were saying something like this to themselves,--

"What harm could it have done to let _this_ invitation go,--just this one? They needn't ever have invited her again." And at that very moment, as they were thus thinking, they heard the rings of a portiere slip aside, and there was Mrs. Armitage herself, entering from the next room with a kind look of concern on her face, and in another moment, after her friendly greeting, she was saying,--

"Bessie has told you my decision about the invitation to Miss Dering, and I dare say you think I am very stiff and hard, not to let the invitation go,--that it can't make much difference for this once; but, my dears, it is _this once_, this one party, where my little ten-year-old Amy and her little cousins will be in amongst the older ones, that _will_ make all the difference, for I don't want these little girls to see such an exhibition of loud manners, and those--I hate to say it--vulgar _flirting_ ways such as I saw New Year's evening. If it were any other party, a party where there were older girls only, I might have let the invitation go; but I have seen the ill effects of very young girls like my Amy and her cousins being brought into contact even for a short time with a handsome showy girl who does and says the kind of things that Miss Dering does, especially when that girl is accepted as a guest by their own friends; and so, if only for this one reason apart from any other, don't you see, my dears, that I _couldn't_ let this invitation go?"

"Yes, I do see, I do see!" cried Kate, impulsively; "but--Mrs. Armitage, do you think she--Dorothea will understand--will know that it is her own fault?"

"I--I think she will, I think she must," answered Mrs. Armitage. There were tears in her eyes as she said this; and as she bent down and kissed them good-by, both Hope and Kate felt the depth and sincerity of her purpose, and respected her for it.

"She's right, she's right of course!" burst forth Kate, as the two girls were driving away together; "but, oh, I do wish she hadn't been quite so right, quite so high-minded just now; for _what_ an uncomfortable time is ahead of us! Oh, Hope, I pity you; what shall you--what _can_ you tell Dorothea?"

"I don't see that I can tell her anything but the truth."

"Not the whole truth?"

"What else could I tell her?"

"My! I wouldn't be in your shoes for something! She'll be so furious, she'll fall upon you,--you or anybody who is nearest,--and chew you into mince-meat! Oh, Hope, don't tell her! Tell her--tell her--oh, I have it--tell her that you spoke to Bessie about the invitation, and that there was none sent because Bessie is offended with her for some reason,--that you can't tell her what it is, but that she must go to Bessie herself for the reason. There! there you are all fixed up, and with the great high-minded muss shoved off on to the Armitage shoulders, where it ought to be. Houp la! I'd dance a jig if I were out of the carriage!"

"But I--I sha'n't shove it off like that, Katy dear. I shall tell Dorothea everything,--it is the only way. I shall tell her as gently as I can, but I shall tell her. If I turn it off in the way you suggest, it will make more trouble. She'll go to Bessie the minute she gets back and say something disagreeable to her, or she'll treat her in an angry disagreeable manner, and just as like as not say something,--something purposely impertinent to irritate Bessie,--for she won't stop at anything then."

"But do you think it will be any better--do you think she'll be any less angry if you tell her that it is Mrs. Armitage who is at the bottom of the business?"

"Yes, I do; I think it will be a great deal better. She'll be angry,--she may be furious, as you say; but I shall tell her just how Bessie felt about _not_ sending the note,--how she cried over it, and how Mrs. Armitage felt; and Dorothea has too much sense not to see herself, after the first burst of temper, that the whole thing has been made too serious a matter for her to quarrel about it in a little petty way. And then--then I think, after she gets over the anger, that she is going to be helped by the whole experience, going to see what she has never seen before,--that she is all in the wrong in her way of doing and saying the things that she does, and that she will be left out of everything if she doesn't do differently; and nothing--no, nothing but something like this--would ever show her how she has been hurting herself."

"Well, you _may_ be right, Hope; but _I_ believe this spoilt baby will scream and kick and bang her head in some sort of tantrum way, and then she'll pack up her clothes and rush off to Boston, shaking the wicked dirty dust of New York from her feet, and calling us all a lot of primmy old maids, or something worse."

Hope laughed a little, but she was more than a little anxious and troubled; for, spite of her brave stand, she did have a very decided dread of applying that heroic treatment of the whole truth to Dorothea; and her dread by no means diminished as she went down the long corridor and saw at the end of it Dorothea's room-door standing open, and within the room Dorothea herself, humming a gay waltz as she shook out the folds of the yellow gown; and "Oh," groaned Hope, "she's getting it ready for the party; she thinks everything is all right, and she's so sure she's going. Oh, dear!"

And then it was, when Hope's heart was quaking with fear and pity, that Dorothea glanced up from the yellow gown and cried out joyfully,--

"Oh, there you are! Come in, come in, and tell me all about it,--how the mistake was made; and where is it,--the invitation?--you brought it with you, didn't you?"

"No--I--she--"

"Thought it wasn't necessary,--that you could tell me? Was the note lost?" went on Dorothea, in her headlong way of antic.i.p.ating everything as usual, and only brought up at last by Hope's faint, distressed cry of--

"Oh, Dorothea, there wasn't any invitation!"

"Wasn't any? What--what do you mean?" exclaimed Dorothea, dropping her yellow gown to the floor, and staring with great dilating eyes at Hope.

"I mean that Bessie--that Bessie didn't--that--that it was stopped--that her--"

"Her brother stopped it? Raymond Armitage? He was so mean as that--because I resented the way he treated me there at the theatre?

He--he has told her some lie, then, and I will tell _her_--"

"Oh, Dorothea, Dorothea, wait, wait--listen to me! It is not--it was not her brother, not Raymond Armitage, who stopped it; it was--it was--their mother--it was Mrs. Armitage."

"Mrs. Armitage! and Raymond went to her--he got her to stop it? Oh, how--"

"No, no, he did not go to her. Oh, Dorothea," going forward and taking Dorothea's hand, "won't you wait, won't you listen to me?"

The soft touch of Hope's hand, the soft tone, so full of pity it sounded like love, seemed to surprise Dorothea out of her gathering wrath for a moment, and her own fingers closing over Hope's with a sudden clinging movement, she answered hastily,--

"Yes, yes, I'll listen, I'll listen; go on, go on!"

And Hope, holding the girl's hand with that soft, firm touch, went on to tell her the story that was so difficult for her to tell,--that "whole truth" that she had decided that Dorothea must now know once for all. As gently as possible, the talk with Bessie, the interview with Mrs.

Armitage was given; nothing, not even the reference to the New Year's party episode and its prejudicial effect, being withheld; and yet through it all Dorothea made no interruption, made no sign to show her feeling, beyond now and then a convulsive clutch at the hand that was holding hers, and a gradual fading away of the hot red color that had suffused her face at the start. As Hope felt this clutch of her fingers now and then, as she saw toward the end of her story the increasing pallor of her companion's face, she could not help a thrill of apprehension, for these signs seemed to her the signs of a storm that would presently break forth; and as she came to the end, the very end of what she had to say, she had a feeling of trying to steady herself, to hold herself in readiness to argue or a.s.sert or soothe, whichever method might seem best suited to stem or stay the outbreak she expected. But what--what did this mean--this dead silence that followed, when she had ceased speaking? Was this the calm before the dreaded storm? And Hope, who had lowered her eyes toward the end of her story, instinctively looked up,--looked up to see great tears rolling down the colorless cheeks before her, and over all the face a pale pa.s.sion of emotion that did not seem to be the pa.s.sion of anger. Could it be the pa.s.sion of pain only? Could it be that there was to be no storm of angry protest and defiance even at the very first? No, there was to be no storm of that kind. Dorothea had again surprised her!

CHAPTER XXV.

But as the fears and apprehensions that beset her began to lessen, Hope's pity and sympathy rose afresh, and with added vigor. She was thinking how best to express this pity and sympathy without striking a note of criticism that might injure the effect of what she had placed before Dorothea, when Dorothea herself showed the way, as she suddenly said,--

"There's no use for me to stay here any longer. I'd better go home, where people know me, and--and don't think my ways are so dreadful."

There was no angry temper in this speech. Though the tone was rather morose and bitter, it seemed to spring from a sudden appalled sense of defeat and danger such as she had never heretofore experienced. And this was just the situation. Hope's tact and kindness had presented the whole truth so carefully that petty irritation was swallowed up in the something serious that Dorothea herself but half comprehended, but from which her first instinct was to flee,--to go home where people knew her and didn't think her ways so dreadful.

But, "No, no," Hope urged against this desire. "You must stay, Dorothea,--stay and take a better place than you've ever taken before with us; for you can, oh, you can, Dorothea. You can make us all love and admire you if you have a mind to, if you won't--won't be _quite_ so headlong, so--so sure you are right in some things, so--childish in some ways."

"_I_ childish! 'Tisn't childishness your Mrs. Armitage is finding fault with!" blurted out Dorothea, in a bitter yet broken tone.

"But it is just that. If you were small for our age instead of so big, it would be called childishness; and as it is, I've heard you spoken of as 'a spoilt child.' But you are so tall, so big, so womanly, most people think you are a grown up young lady; and--and grown up young _ladies_ don't go on just in the way that you do, Dorothea."

"'Just the way that I do!' Oh, I laugh, and I make too much noise in my fun, I suppose you think; but what's the reason the Brookside people and the lots of people we know all about Brookside,--what's the reason they don't find fault with my ways and leave me out of their parties?"