MORE PLANS
But it would take more than a mere matter of falling downstairs to put
an end to the activities of Dodo and Paul. This they proved themselves,
by coming up smiling and chuckling and very much alive at the foot of
the stairs.
“Oh, you will be the death of me yet, you li’l rascals,” moaned Mrs.
Billette, picking them up and feeling carefully over their small bodies
to make sure that there were no bones broken. “I shall die of heart
failure, if nothing else. Why will you not behave yourselves? Dodo,
Paul, tell mother, are you hurt, darlings?”
Dodo and Paul regarded their mother and the girls in wide-eyed
amazement at the fuss that was being made over them.
“Course, we’re not hurt,” said the little girl, rubbing a dimpled knee
as though it had come in too hard contact with the edge of a stair.
“Paul an’ me, we was runnin’ a race to see who could get downstairs
first an’ Paul got in the way----”
“Den she pushed me,” said Paul, taking up the narrative in an injured
tone. “I would have won de race only she pushed me. Wasn’t fair--”
“Was too,” interrupted Dodo, hotly. “You pushed me first, right up
there at the head of the stairs an’ so I pushed you too.”
“Ooh,” said Paul, his eyes wide and injured. “Dodo Billette what a big
story-teller----”
“Paul,” interrupted his mother sharply, “that will do. How many times
have I told you that you must never call your little sister names?”
“Well, but she is,” insisted the round-eyed Paul, whereat his
exasperated parent pushed him gently but very very firmly toward the
front door.
“There, go outside, both of you,” she said. “And see if you can stop
quarreling for five minutes. What have I done to have such terrible
children!”
As the door closed upon the obstreperous twins she raised her hands in
a typically French gesture and turned to the girls, despairingly.
“You see how it is,” she said, leading the way once more into the cool
peace of the living-room. “Not five minutes in the day do they give me
peace. Sometime I think I shall go mad.”
“Poor mother,” said Mollie, putting her arm about the little woman
and seating her in the easiest chair in the room. “I know they’re a
dreadful pest, but just think how much worse it would be if you didn’t
have them. Remember the time when they were kidnapped----”
But Mrs. Billette stopped her with a quick gesture.
“Do not remind me of that!” she commanded, sharply. “Have I not done
my best to forget that dreadful time? But you do well to speak of it,
after all, Mollie,” she said, more gently, patting Mollie’s hand. “It
make me more contented to bear with them. They are very little yet and
it is natural for children to be always in mischief.”
Those who are familiar with the Outdoor Girls will remember when the
mischievous, adorable twins, Dodo and Paul, had been kidnapped by a
villain who demanded an outrageous sum of money for their safe return
and how the same twins had been rescued from a ship, wrecked on the
rocks of Bluff Point near the cottage where the Outdoor Girls were
summering. And it was true that whenever Mrs. Billette or Mollie were
tempted to be impatient with the twins they remembered the despair of
that dreadful time and dealt gently with the erring Dodo and Paul,
aggravating little wretches that they could be.
“Just the same,” said Grace as, a few hours later, the girls started
for home and dinner, “I’d just as soon leave the twins behind when we
go on our vacation.”
“Poor kiddies,” said Betty, with a twinkle in her eye. “Just think how
they would enjoy themselves!”
“Yes,” retorted Grace, unmoved. “But just think how we would enjoy
ourselves.”
“Speaking of our vacation,” said Mollie, who had agreed to walk as far
as Betty’s house with her. “It seems as though things were just about
settled for one grand and glorious time.”
“How about you, Grace?” asked Amy, as they paused at the corner before
separating for their respective domiciles. “Do you suppose your folks
will give you the O.K.?”
“Amy, what slang!” chuckled Betty. “If we don’t look out, you’ll be
giving us points.”
“Impossible,” retorted Amy, at which Betty grinned still more.
“Why, yes, I guess,” said Grace, in reply to Amy’s question. “The folks
will let me go anywhere as long as Will comes along.”
“Good gracious, are we going to let the boys in on this?” asked Mollie,
wide-eyed.
“Did you ever know of a time we were able to keep the boys
out--altogether?” retorted Grace, favoring Mollie with a pitying
glance. “We’ve tried it, haven’t we?” she added, as Mollie still
stared at her.
“We-ell, not very hard,” said Betty, impishly, and, looking at her, the
girls had to laugh.
“You’re enough to demoralize anybody, Betty Nelson,” said Mollie,
giving her a hug. “You won’t even let us pretend we don’t want the
boys.”
“I don’t see why we should pretend,” said Amy, boldly, flushing as the
girls turned their laughing eyes upon her. “We always have a lot better
time with them,” she persisted, and the Little Captain hugged her
impulsively.
“Of course we do. Don’t let ’em tell you different,” she said gayly,
then turned decidedly on her heel. “I don’t know about the rest of
you,” she flung back at them over her shoulder, “but I do know I’ve got
to be getting home. Mother will think I’m lost. Coming, Mollie?”
And so they parted, promising to get together on the morrow for a grand
“pow-wow” and to make definite plans for their outing.
“Is Allen coming to-night, Betty?” asked Mollie of the Little Captain,
as they stopped before Betty’s door.
“He said he was,” said Betty, lightly, adding ruefully: “And he left
before I had a chance to contradict him.”
“Which of course you wanted to do,” teased Mollie, adding, soberly:
“Have you noticed anything unusual about Allen, Betty?”
Betty looked startled, but her answer sounded indifferent enough.
“I haven’t had much of a chance to notice anything about him lately,”
she said, but sharp little Mollie was not one whit deceived.
“He’s got something on his mind,” she said, thoughtfully. “Once or
twice I’ve met him on the street and he was in such a hurry going
somewhere that he didn’t even notice me. The last time I called after
him and he stopped and apologized for not seeing me, just like a
gentleman. But for all that, he was in a dreadfully big hurry to get
away.”
“Just busy, I guess,” said Betty, adding, as she answered her mother’s
call from within the house: “He’s getting to be terribly popular, you
know.”
Although Betty had denied that she had noticed any change in Allen, in
her own heart she knew that she had, and wondered what could be the
matter. She ate her dinner absently and hurried through her dessert--it
was a good one, too, plum cake with hard sauce--so that she might
“pretty” herself before Allen arrived.
As she brushed her dark curls into some semblance of order and
regarded her flushed face in the mirror over her pretty dressing table,
Betty reflected whimsically.
“And I was wondering,” she said, a little quirk at the corners of her
mouth, “whether I should see him or not. It would really be better if
I didn’t. It might teach him that he can’t stay away for a whole week
without even ’phoning--” She paused and regarded her image thoughtfully.
Then, with a smile, she patted the last unruly lock of hair into place
and went over to her closet to select the prettiest gown she had.
“And all the time,” she mused, “I knew I’d see him. I had to when he
spoke in that tone. And he knew it too. Well,” with a sigh, “there
isn’t any use worrying over it, I suppose.”
The dress she took from the hook was a fluffy organdie of that popular
and becoming color known as “American beauty.” And when Betty slipped
it over her dark head and stood once more before the mirror, the color
of it miraculously matched the color in her cheeks. Betty--and the
Little Captain was not at all conceited--was well satisfied with the
effect.
Before she had quite finished putting the last touches to her pretty
toilet she heard Allen talking and laughing with her father on the
porch.
“It’s a wonder,” she thought, resentfully, “that he can spare any
time at all from that old business of his. I wonder,” she added,
inconsistently, “if he will like my dress.”
As a matter of fact, it is doubtful if Allen really saw the dress at
all. For he was staring straight at Betty and no dress, however lovely,
could compete with Betty’s face when she looked as she looked to-night.
Mr. Nelson, enjoying an after-dinner cigar, noted the direction of the
young lawyer’s glance and chuckled to himself. He liked Allen Washburn
very much, and, strange as it may seem, he liked his pretty daughter
even better. So it is very easy to see that everybody was happy.
After a while, like a very thoughtful and obliging parent, he went
inside, ostensibly to play the phonograph, but really to ask proudly of
his wife if Betty wasn’t the prettiest thing she ever saw.
To which Mrs. Nelson replied, that, though she hadn’t seen Betty yet
to-night, she would agree, just on general principles, that she was.
“And the best of it is,” added the woman, softly, “Betty doesn’t know
how lovely she is. She is just as sweet and unspoiled as she was at
ten.”
“Let’s hope that she will always be so,” replied Betty’s father,
gravely.
Meanwhile, out on the porch the last warm rays of the sun had given
place to the soft summer twilight and Allen brought his chair closer
to Betty’s so that he might watch the expression on her face. She was
smiling a little, as though enjoying some joke that he could not share
and he wondered if she were going to let him be serious. It was very
seldom that she did.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked, suddenly.
Betty’s face became, on the instant, demurely grave.
“How could you think it?” she murmured, looking up at him innocently.
“What is there funny about you, Allen?”
“A good many things, I’ve come to believe,” answered Allen, ruefully.
“At least, every time I see you, you seem amused.”
“I haven’t been amused very much lately then, have I?” she murmured,
and once more Allen began to look savage.
“Stop it!” he said, and Betty looked at him, wide-eyed. Her mirth
nearly bubbled over.
“Were you speaking to me?” she asked, and then at the look on his face
she began to laugh and the more savage he looked the more she laughed.
Allen got up and walked to the other end of the porch. A moment later
Betty’s voice, still choked with laughter, reached him.
“Allen, don’t be a goose,” she said. “Come here and talk to me. I won’t
laugh. Truly I won’t.”
Allen came, still forbidding, and sat down beside her. He was quiet so
long that she finally reopened the conversation.
“What’s the matter, Allen?” she asked, gently. “Are you worried about
anything?”
At her changed tone he turned to her eagerly.
“Will you listen to me without laughing?”
There was a sparkle in Betty’s eyes but her lips were grave.
“Yes, anything you say,” she said, meekly.
Allen looked suspicious, but he went on, just the same.
“There _is_ something on my mind,” he said, so gravely that immediately
Betty became grave too. “I’d like to tell you, little Betty, and then
maybe you will realize why I haven’t been able to come around lately.”
“Tell me,” said Betty, softly.