ay--that it was all his fault. But if
you hadn't tried to make him come he wouldn't have done it."

"I didn't try to make him come. Did you?"

Dolly stared at her a moment. The question seemed to force her to give
attention to a new idea, to something she had not thought of before. But
when she spoke her voice was still defiant.

"Suppose I did!" she said angrily. "I wanted to have a good time--and he
was the nicest boy there--"

"Maybe he saw that you were waiting for him too plainly, Dolly. Maybe he
wanted to pick out someone for himself--and if you'd pretended that you
didn't care whether he talked to you or not he would have been more
anxious to be with you."

Dolly blushed slightly at that, though it was too dark for Bessie to see
the color in her cheeks. She knew very well that Bessie was right, but
she wondered how Bessie knew it. That feigned indifference had brought
her the attentions of more than one boy who had boasted that he was not
going to pay any attention to her just because everyone else did.

But the gradually dawning suspicion that she might, after all, have only
herself to blame for the spoiling of her evening's fun, and that she had
acted in rather a silly fashion, didn't soften Dolly particularly. Very
few people are able to recover a lost temper just because they find out,
at the height of their anger, that they are themselves to blame for what
made them angry, and Dolly was not yet one of them.

"I suppose you'll tell all the other girls about this," she said. She
wasn't crying any more, but her voice was as hard as ever. "I think
you're horrid--and I thought I was going to like you so much. I think
I'll ask Miss Eleanor to let me share a room with someone else."

Bessie didn't answer, though Dolly waited while the wagon drove on for
quite a hundred yards. Bessie was thinking hard. She liked Dolly; she
was sure that this was only a show of Dolly's temper, which, despite
the restrictions that surrounded her in her home, and had a good deal to
do with her mischievous ways, had never been properly curbed.

But, though Bessie was not angry in her turn, she understood thoroughly
that if she and Dolly were to continue the friendship that had begun so
promisingly, this trouble between them must be settled, and settled in
the proper fashion. If Dolly were allowed to sleep on her anger, it
would be infinitely harder to restore their relations to a friendly
basis.

"I suppose you don't care!" s