Two Little Women. Wells Carolyn
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lifted and softly set down on the thick turf, as her progress continued. From the Rose lawn Blot spied the advancing Flossy. He didn't then know her name, but he had liberal ideas on the subject of introductions, and he made a wild dash toward the oncoming kitten.
When Floss saw the small black whirlwind hurling itself at her, she was either too brave or too frightened to retreat, so she put her white back up as high as possible and stood her ground. She expressed her opinion of the performance in a series of sputtering yowls that drew Dolly's attention from her book to the impending battle.
She sprang out of the swing, and rushed toward Flossy just as the two belligerents met in the grassy arena.
Dorothy Rose, on her side of the lawn was shaking with laughter, and this sight was the last straw to Dorinda Fayre's overburdened soul.
"Don't you let your dog eat up my cat!" she cried out, angrily, to the black-haired girl opposite.
"Don't you let your cat eat up my dog, then!" was the immediate response, delivered with enthusiasm equalling Dolly's own.
"Cats don't eat dogs!"
"Neither do dogs eat cats!"
"Well, these will eat each other! Oh! look, we must get them apart!"
The battle was of the pitched variety, whatever that may mean. But it is a phrase used to describe the most intense and desperate battles of history, and surely this was one of them. Dolly Fayre had no idea that gentle little Flossy had so much fight in her small white body, and Dotty Rose never dreamed that Blot was such a fire-eater under his curly black coat.
Really alarmed for their pets, the two girls went nearer to the agile warriors, who now looked like an indistinct moving-picture film that was going too fast.
"Come here, Blot!" Dotty cried, in most commanding tones.
"Come here, Flossy!" Dolly called, in coaxing accents.
Insubordination ensued on both sides.
"We'll have to grab them!" declared Dotty Rose; dancing about the war zone.
"We can't!" wailed Dolly Fayre, wringing her hands as she edged away from the seat of battle.
"Well, I just guess we will!" and Dotty Rose seized Blot by the scruff of his black neck and shook him loose from the white kitten.
With a little cry of rejoicing, Dolly Fayre picked up Flossy and plumped herself down on the grass to make sure the kitten was intact.
Dotty sat down too, and felt of Blot's small and well-hidden bones.
As neither animal gave any cry of pain and as each glared at its late opponent, the respective owners of the combatants drew sighs of relief and held on tightly to their pets, lest a fresh attack should begin.
Now it stands to reason that after a scene like that just described, the two girls couldn't get up and walk off home without a word.
So they sat on the grass and looked at each other.
And when the troubled blue eyes of Dolly Fayre saw the big brown eyes of Dotty Rose twinkle and saw her red lips smile, she discovered that the scowl she had objected to was not permanent, and she smiled back.
But somehow, they could think of nothing to say. The smile broke the ice a little, but Dolly Fayre was timid, and Dotty Rose was absorbed in looking at the other's blue eyes and yellow hair.
But it was Dotty who spoke first. "Well," she said, "how do you like me?"
It was an unfortunate question. For Dolly Fayre hadn't a single definite notion regarding Dotty Rose except that she didn't like her. However, it would hardly do to tell her that, so she said, slowly: "I don't know yet; how do you like me?"
"Well, I think you're awfully pretty, to begin with."
"So do I you," put in Dolly, glad to find a favourable report that she could make truthfully.
"Aren't we different," went on the other thoughtfully; "you're so blonde and I'm so dark."
"Yes; I just hate my hair, – towhead, Bert calls me."
"Who's Bert?"
"He's my brother; he's away at school. He's seventeen years old." Dolly spoke proudly, as if she had said, "he's captain of the Fleet."
"Why, I've got a brother away at school, too."
"Have you? What's his name?"
"Bob; of course it's Robert, but we always call him Bob. He's eighteen."
"What else have you got?"
Dotty knew the question referred to family connections, and answered: "A little sister, Genie, 'leven years old."
"That all?"
"Yep. 'Cept Aunt Clara, who lives with us, she's a widow. And of course, Mother and Dad."
"I've got a grown-up sister, Trudy. She's in s'ciety now, and she's awful pretty."
"Look like you?"
"Some. But she's all fluffy-haired and dimply-smiled, you know."
"What funny words you use."
"Do I? Well, I only do when I can't think of the real ones. Are you going to the Grammar School?"
"Mother says it's too late to begin this year. Here it is May, – and it closes in June. So she says for me to wait till next year."
This was comforting. If the girl didn't go to school this year she couldn't make any bother with the Closing Exercises. Beside, maybe she was not such a dislikable girl as she had seemed at first. Dolly sat and regarded her. At last she said: "Then the doll-carriage belongs to your little sister."
"To Genie, yes. How did you know she had one?"
"Saw it come with your things, the day you moved in."
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen, but I'll be fifteen next month, – June."
"Why, so will I! Isn't that funny! What day is your birthday?"
"The tenth."
"Mine's the twentieth. We're almost twins. And our names are quite alike, too. Mine's Dorothy, really, but they all call me Dotty."
"And mine's Dorinda, but I'm called Dolly."
"And we both have brothers at school, and we each have a sister."
"But mine is a big sister and yours is a little sister."
"Yes, but we have as many differences as we have likenesses. You're so fair, and – why, your name is Fayre!"
Dolly laughed. "Yes, and you're so rosy and your name is Rose!"
"Dotty Rose and Dolly Fayre! We ought to be friends. Shall we?"
Dolly hesitated. She was too honest to pretend to a liking she didn't quite feel. She looked squarely at Dotty Rose, and said, straightforwardly, "What made you scowl at me that first day you came?"
"I didn't!" and Dotty Rose opened her brown eyes in astonishment.
"Yes, you did; and you shook your head at me when I smiled to you. You were sitting in a window, with your legs hanging out."
"Sitting where! Oh, I remember! Why, I didn't scowl at you, it was because Aunt Clara called me to come in out of that window. And I didn't want to, so I scowled. I've a fearful temper. And then, she told me again to come in, and I shook my head. I wasn't shaking it at you! Why, I didn't know you then!"
Dolly drew a long breath. "Then that's all right! I thought you scowled because I smiled at you, and it made me mad. All right, I'll be friends with you. I'd like to. I think you're real nice."
"So do I you!"
CHAPTER III
THE NEW ROOMS
In the cushioned swing on the Fayres' verandah the two girls sat.
An artist would have stopped to admire the picture. Dorinda, her pink and white face framed in its golden halo of curlilocks, her light blue frock, neat and smooth, was calmly and daintily nibbling