"Real Nuns?"
"Yes, because you never looked out of the window at us.
Real nuns and sham nuns,—don't you see?"
Almost all the young ladies are sham nuns, except you, and two pretty little ones in the story above, fifth window from the end."
"Oh, I know!" said Clover, much amused.
"Sally Alsop, you know, Katy, and Amy Erskine.
They are such nice girls!"
"Are they?" replied Mr. Eels, with the air of one who notes down names for future reference.
"Well, I thought so.
Not so much fun in them as some of the others, I guess; but a fellow likes other things as well as fun.
I know if my sister was there, I'd rather have her take the dull line than the other."
Katy treasured up this remark for the benefit of the S. S. U. C.
Mrs. Page came back just then, and Mr. Eels resumed his cane.
Nothing more was heard of Clarence that night.
Next morning Cousin Olivia fulfilled her threat of inspecting the girls' wardrobe.
She shook her head over the simple, untrimmed merinos and thick cloth coats.
"There's no help for it," she said, "but it's a great pity.
You would much better have waited, and had things fresh.
Perhaps it may be possible to match the merino, and have some sort of basque arrangement added on.
I will talk to Madame Chonfleur about it.
Meantime, I shall get one handsome thick dress for each of you, and have it stylishly made.
That, at least, you really need."
Katy was too glad to be so easily let off to raise objections.
So that afternoon she and Clover were taken out to "choose their material," Mrs. Page said, but really to sit by while she chose it for them.
At the dressmaker's it was the same: they stood passive while the orders were given, and every thing decided upon.
"Isn't it funny!" whispered Clover; "but I don't like it a bit, do you?
It's just like Elsie saying how she'll have her doll's things made."
"Oh, this dress isn't mine! it's Cousin Olivia's!" replied Katy. "She's welcome to have it trimmed just as she likes!"
But when the suits came home she was forced to be pleased. There was no over-trimming, no look of finery: every thing fitted perfectly, and had the air of finish which they had noticed and admired in Lilly's clothes.
Katy almost forgot that she had objected to the dresses as unnecessary.
"After all, it is nice to look nice," she confessed to Clover.
Excepting going to the dressmaker's there was not much to amuse the girls during the first half of vacation.
Mrs. Page took them to drive now and then, and Katy found some pleasant books in the library, and read a good deal.
Clover meantime made friends with Clarence.
I think his heart was won that first evening by her attentions to Guest the dog, that mysterious composite, "half mastiff and half terrier, with a touch of the bull-dog."
Clarence loved Guest dearly, and was gratified that Clover liked him; for the poor animal had few friends in the household.
In a little while Clarence became quite sociable with her, and tolerably so with Katy.
They found him, as Mr. Eels said, "a bright fellow," and pleasant and good-humored enough when taken in the right way.
Lilly always seemed to take him wrong, and his treatment of her was most disagreeable, snappish, and quarrelsome to the last degree.
"Much you don't like oranges!" he said one day at dinner, in answer to an innocent remark of hers. "Much!
I've seen you eat two at a time, without stopping.
Pa, Lilly says she don't like oranges!
I've seen her eat two at a time, without stopping!
Much she doesn't!
I've seen her eat two at a time, without stopping!"
He kept this up for five minutes, looking from one person to another, and repeating,
"Much she don't!
Much!" till Lilly was almost crying from vexation, and even Clover longed to box his ears.
Nobody was sorry when Mr. Page ordered him to leave the room, which he did with a last vindictive "Much!" addressed to Lilly.
"How can Clarence behave so?" said Katy, when she and Clover were alone.