Those Dale Girls Part 11

But when she got home she did not tell Hester. Instead she said: "Put on your things and come out before it grows dark-the air will do you good."

"Can't," said Hester, deep in a book, "I'm too tired to move."

"I want to show you something."

"Where?" reading on.

"In a shop window."

"Julie Dale, what's the matter?" she exclaimed, dropping her book. "I'm sure you've got a crazy look about you-your hat's on crooked!"

"I don't care, I think you would want to throw _your_ hat in the air if you had seen it!"

"Seen what? A shop window? I hate them-they're just full of tantalizing things one wants and can't have!"

"Well, this isn't-or perhaps it is-I am sure I don't know, but I came way back after you and oh! do come."

"You are responsible for great expectations," said Hester, reluctantly getting up from the bed. "I call it a most unchristian act to rout me out like this."

But she took another view of it when she found herself out in the brisk wintry air, and she caught some of the exhilaration of her sister's gay spirits as they went along, Peter Snooks racing wildly about them.

When they approached the window of the grocery Julie's heart beat rapidly in antic.i.p.ation of Hester's surprise. As they reached it she suddenly pulled her arm and led her close to the window. "Look!" she said excitedly but in a low voice, for many persons were pa.s.sing and some few stood near them.

There it was, the mayonnaise into which they had put their best endeavor, standing in so conspicuous a place that it could not fail to attract the attention of the pa.s.sers-by.

"New thing, that mayonnaise, isn't it?" they heard a man say to his companion, "well put up-let's go in and look at it."

Hester gazed speechless into the window, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.

"Would you ever have believed it!" whispered Julie, poking her. "Let's wait," as she saw a clerk lean into the window and take down a bottle, "let's wait and see if those people buy it."

"No we won't," said Hester, finding her voice at last. She clutched her sister's arm convulsively. "We'll go straight home before I scream with joy right here on the corner."

"You don't like shop windows, do you?" said Julie with a happy laugh.

In the exuberance of their spirits and with a desire to impart the good news to their neighbors, whom they now counted as friends, the girls stopped at the Grahame's on their way upstairs.

"Jack," exclaimed Hester the impetuous, "Jack, what do you suppose has happened?"

"By the look of you I should say you'd inherited a fortune."

"Pouf!" disdainfully, "that is commonplace." She clapped her hands together while her eyes danced merrily. "Try again, Jack."

"May I have a guess, Miss Dale?" said a voice that made the girl start, while a long, lazy form emerged from the corner.

Hester's manner changed instantly, and her eyes sought Jack's questioningly, as if she were asking some explanation. Then she turned to the man who stood quietly watching her.

"How do you do, Mr. Landor?" she said with a stiff little formality that was unlike Hester, "I did not know you and Jack were friends."

"May I be presented?" asked Julie, coming forward; "I seem to be quite out of it."

Jack from his chair in his capacity of host performed the introduction.

"Will _you_ let me guess?" said the man, addressing Julie as if there had been no interruption. "Your sister refuses to answer me."

"You certainly will not let him guess," promptly replied Hester.

"Curiosity is a shockingly reprehensible trait and besides," with a little toss of her head, "our affairs cannot possibly be of interest to Mr. Landor."

The man flushed and picked up his hat. "I am off, old fellow," he said to Jack. "I'll be in again before a great while."

"Oh, don't let us drive you away, please, Mr. Landor," protested Julie, who was secretly marveling over that cool little sarcastic voice which she had scarcely recognized as Hester's. "We had only a moment to stop and we can come down again any time; we know what a great pleasure it is to Jack to have visitors, don't we, Hester?"

Julie had her hand on the door.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MAY I HAVE A GUESS, MISS DALE?"]

"You will do what she asks, I am sure, Mr. Landor," said Hester. It did not escape him that she s.h.i.+fted the responsibility to her sister. "Julie always arranges things perfectly. We really should be at home this very minute." And waving her hand at the astonished Jack, she followed in the wake of her sister.

"Hester," exclaimed Julie, in the seclusion of their own apartment, "what made you so rude to Mr. Landor? I never heard you speak like that to any one before."

"Oh! Julie," cried the younger girl, flinging herself down in a chair, "I've the most disgusting, beastly temper!"

"You've nothing of the sort!" denied her sister indignantly.

"I have. You don't know anything about it, it's-it's just developing. I get all hot inside; sometimes it breaks out the way it did at Miss Ware's and to-day it made me nasty and sarcastic. I've always hated sarcastic people!"

"What has Mr. Landor done, dear, to make you dislike him so? I thought he seemed most charming and agreeable."

"Did you?" indifferently, leaning back in her chair. Suddenly she sat bolt upright and exclaimed vehemently, "Julie Dale, if you dare to take to singing his praises as Dr. Ware does I'll-I'll-well, I don't know what I'll do! I hate him, with his smiling, masterful air and his prying into affairs which are none of his business." (This seemed rather strong language, but Julie did not interrupt her.) "He is an idle society man and we are hard-working girls. He has nothing in common with us whatever. We've no use for men, anyway-they don't belong to the sort of life we live, they-they don't fit into our scheme of things. Rather neat, that last phrase, eh, Julie? Read it in a book." As usual, Hester's outburst ended in a laugh.

"Are you twenty years old," said Julie stooping down to kiss the flushed face, "or two hundred, Hester?"

"I'm an end-of-the-century idiot, that's what I am!" she replied, pulling Julie over to give her a suffocating hug. Then in that irrelevant fas.h.i.+on so characteristic of her she threw back her head and sniffed the air suspiciously.

"Julie!"

But Julie had slipped away.

Hester chased her into the little dining-room. "Julie Dale! do I smell steak?" Hester's nostrils fairly quivered.

"You do. I plunged into that wild extravagance on the strength of the mayonnaise, and I don't care what you say!"

"Say!" gasped Hester as Bridget brought in this unheard of luxury, "I only want to eat!"

CHAPTER X