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 shillings. 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.

And now it all seemed so _tame_. First no costume, then an ordinary wire to ask mother to go up for a day's shopping. They might have come from Surrey instead of America. And two whole days before they wired at all.

Perhaps Mrs. Graham was thinking something of the kind too, for she stood biting her lip, with the colour going and coming in pretty blushes on her cheek, as if she could not make up her mind.

She was just "mother" to Dorothy, but to other people Mrs. Graham was both pretty and sweet.

"I _must_ go," she said at length, "and there is scarcely time to get ready."

"Oh, _mother_!" cried Dorothy, "can't I come too?"

Mrs. Graham still seemed to be considering something else, and she merely answered, "No, dear," and went quickly upstairs.

Dorothy sank down on the sofa in a terribly injured mood. n.o.body seemed to be thinking of _her_ at all. And before she had got over the first brunt of this discovery her mother was back again ready to go, with her purse-bag and gloves in her hand.

[Sidenote: Left in Charge]

"Dorothy," she said, arranging her hat before the mirror of the overmantel, "you may choose any pudding you like, tell cook. Here are the keys"--she paused to throw a small bunch in Dorothy's lap. "Get out anything they want. And d.i.c.k won't be in till half-past one, tell her.

And Dollie"--there was again that queer little catch in her voice--"it is possible Miss Addis...o...b.. may call this afternoon. I have told Louisa to show her right into the drawing-room without telling her I am out, and come and find you. I want you to be very nice to her, and explain about the Merediths. Tell her I was obliged to go because they only gave me the place of meeting, and I have not their address. I shall be home as soon as possible, between four and five at latest, so do your best to keep her till I come back."

"Did you say Miss _Addis...o...b.._, mother?" said Dorothy dismally, yet a little comforted by having the keys, and with the thought of choosing the pudding, "I don't think _she's_ likely to call."

"I said Miss Addis...o...b..," Mrs. Graham answered decidedly. "Do you understand what I wish you to do, Dollie?"

"Yes, mother," said Dorothy, subdued but mutinous.

Then she ran after her to the hall door.

"Mayn't I ask some one to spend the day, mother?" she called, but Mrs.

Graham was almost at the gate, nearly running to be in time for her train, and did not hear her.

Mrs. Graham came home looking very white and tired. "Did Miss Addis...o...b.. call?" were the first words she said.

Louisa, who was bringing in the tea, looked meaningly at Dorothy, and went out without speaking.

"Oh, mother!" said Dorothy, "I am so sorry, I had been in all day, and Helen Jones just asked me to come to the post with her, and when I came back there was a motor at the door, and----"

"She _came_!" exclaimed Mrs. Graham. "And you did not give her my message! Oh, Dorothy!"

Her tone was almost like a cry of pain. Dorothy was startled. "She wouldn't wait, mother, and--and of course it _was_ strange she came to-day when she hasn't called for ages and ages! I didn't think she would, or I wouldn't have gone," she explained.

Mrs. Graham did not argue the point. She lay down on the sofa and closed her eyes. Dorothy longed to ask her about the American cousins, but did not dare. Presently she poured out a cup of tea and brought it to her mother.

"If you take some tea you will feel better, mother," she said softly.

"If I had asked d.i.c.k to do something for me he would have done it, Dorothy," said Mrs. Graham bitterly, and without seeming to notice the tea she got up and gathered her things together. "I have a headache,"

she said. "I am not coming down again. Father will not be home to-night, so you can tell Louisa there will be no need to lay the cloth for dinner. I don't wish any one to come near me." And she went out of the room.