CHAPTER VIII

A STRANGE INTRUDER

“I _do_ think this is the dearest place,” said Maisie, as they went in the door of Treasure House. “I never heard of such a thing before. Whose plan was it?”

“Our two fatherses, mostly,” replied Dotty. “Wait a minute, girls, till I switch on the light.”

In a moment a small side light pierced the gloom, but before she could turn on the larger light, Dotty gave a scream.

“Oh,” she fairly shrieked, “what is that? who is it?”

“Who is what?” cried Dolly following her in, and Maisie came quickly after.

Then they saw what she meant. Somebody or something lay on the floor. Something like a person, but still and unmoving.

“It’s a woman!” screamed Dotty, as she peered down into a veiled white face. “Oh, who can it be? How did she get here?”

Always excitable, Dotty was now fairly beside herself with fear and alarm, and not daring to touch the prostrate figure, she shuddered and fell back against the wall.

“_I_ can’t look! What is it?” and Dolly clapped her hands over her eyes, and refused to take them down. “See what it is, Maisie, won’t you?”

“No. I don’t see why I—I sh-should, when you and D-D-Dotty won’t,” and Maisie cowered in another corner.

Dolly peeped out from between her fingers. Maisie had fallen in a heap on a window-seat, and was shaking with nervous fear. Dotty was staring at the woman on the floor, but was now showing more curiosity than terror. Dolly glanced at the still form lying there.

“Is she—is she d-dead?” she faltered.

“Ridiculous!” cried Dotty, “of course not. She—she just stepped in here, and—and f-fainted!”

“Oh,” and Dolly became hysterical. “That’s like a f-funny story Father tells, ab-bout the man who called at a house and said, ‘P-please let me have a f-f-fit in your hall’!”

“If he stuttered as much as you do, I guess he had a chill instead of a fit,” giggled Dotty, and then Maisie roused herself.

“Let’s lift her up,” she said; “I’m not afraid. Come and help me.” She took a few steps nearer the woman, and then catching another look at the face she cried, “Oh, I can’t! She looks so queer!”

“Queer, how?” and Dotty’s ever-ready curiosity overcame her repugnance, and she drew near to look in the half-hidden face. “If I dared lift her veil—” she bent over, and drew back instantly. “Oh, girls, her face is cold, stone cold!”

“Then she’s dead!” wailed Dotty. “I told you so! Dead in our pretty house!”

“Well, if the poor lady is dead, she can’t harm us. Let’s lift her up,” and Maisie, with returning courage, put her hand under the mop of grey hair, which was partly hidden beneath a dark felt hat. But again, the strange, eerie sensation of touching an inert form overcame her and pulling her hand away, she ran back to the window-seat. “I can’t! I thought I could, but I can’t. Oh, what shall we do?”

“I s’pose we’ll have to go and get somebody,” said Dolly dolefully. “Shall I go, and you two stay here, or who—”

“Don’t you go and leave me here alone with Maisie!” screamed Dotty. “I won’t let you, Dolly. Maisie, you go and get somebody, and Dolly and I will stay here.”

Maisie started, but on opening the door, and peering out, she flew back, slamming the door hard.

“What is it?” cried both girls. “What did you see?”

“Oh, oh!” and Maisie shivered and shook.

“Tell us, what’s out there? What did you see out there?”

“Oh, n-n-othing. But it’s so dark! I’m afraid to go out. There may be more of them—”

“More people wanting to have a fit in our hall?” said Dotty, who never could fail to see the ridiculous side of anything.

“Don’t, Dot,” implored Dolly. “_Don’t_ talk like that! Maybe she is d-dead, you know.”

“Maybe? Why, of _course_ she is! She doesn’t breathe or move at all. Of course she’s dead, Dolly. We’ve got to go and get somebody. Suppose we all go. It’s awful to leave her here alone, but what can we do?”

“Oh, we oughtn’t all to leave her. Maybe she’ll come to.”

“She can’t if she’s dead, can she?”

“Well, wait a minute. You always fly off so quick, Dotty. Let me think. Let’s all sit down here and think a minute.”

Dolly pulled the two girls down beside her on a window-seat. They looked at the silent, motionless form. The woman lay on her side, her hands under her. Her feet in old buttoned shoes stuck out beneath a shabby skirt of dark cloth, frayed at the edges. She wore a big, dark coat of rough cloth. Her hat was held on by a thick veil through which they could quite plainly see her face. She had a very white complexion, but very red cheeks, and staring wide-open blue eyes.

Her grey hair was frowsy and half tumbling down, and round her neck was an old black feather boa. Altogether she looked poorly dressed but her face gave promise of being pretty.

“I’ve got to see her better,” declared Dotty, as Dolly’s cogitation had promised no suggestions. “I’ve just simply _got_ to! Maisie, will you help lift her head, if I’ll help?”

“Yes, I will,” said Maisie, decidedly; “I won’t flinch this time.”

Dotty went over and knelt at the woman’s side. Maisie knelt at her head. “Now,” said Dotty, “I’ll put my hands under her shoulders and you put yours beneath her head, and we’ll sit her up. Maybe—well,—maybe she isn’t—you know.”

Gently Dotty put her hand under the old cloth coat, carefully Maisie passed her hand again under the grey hair.

“Now!” said Dotty, and as they lifted, the grey hair came off in Maisie’s hand, and—the head of the woman rolled away from the body! All three girls shrieked, and then Dotty began to scream with laughter.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, that naughty little thing! Oh, how could she! Girls, girls, it isn’t a woman, it’s a dummy thing that horrid little Genie fixed up to tease us! She ought to be punished for this! But we _were_ well taken in!”

The other two began to realise at last what Dotty meant. Sure enough, the grey hair was a wig, or rather, what is known as a “Transformation.” The head was a plaster cast, nearly life size, and the body of the supposed woman was a small bolster dressed in old clothes. The shoes were merely tucked under the edge of the skirt.

Dotty lifted up the head and pulled off the veil. “It’s my old cast of the head of the Milo Venus,” she said. “See, that little scamp has painted the cheeks and lips red, and the eyes blue, and left the rest white. No wonder she looked pale!”

“And with that veil on, it sure did look like a person,” said Maisie. “Well she had the joke on us, all right! I was scared out of my wits!”

“So was I,” whispered Dolly, who was still shaking; “and I can’t get over it. It was awful!”

“Oh, pooh!” said Dotty, “I was scared too. But I fully expect to get over it! I think we all will! Don’t worry, Doll, a pan of fudge will calm your nerves.”

“Oh, it’s too late to make fudge. I want to go home.”

“Stay right where you are, sister. A few more bright lights, and a fudge-fest will make a new Dolly of you.”

As she talked, Dotty was switching on lights all over the house, getting out chocolate and the chafing-dish, and, making signs to Maisie to perk up and be gay.

Maisie took the hint, and in a short time, there was excellent fudge ready for three merrily laughing girls.

Dotty felt the responsibility of the thing, for it was her sister who was the culprit. She recognised the cast and also the clothing and the wig, and she knew it could have been no one else but the mischievous Genie. So she did all she could to remove the shadow of unpleasantness that hung round the performance, and she succeeded admirably.

Naturally, the talk turned to the Hallowe’en party.

“I suppose Grace and Ethel will make out the list of invitations,” said Dotty.

“It won’t take much making out,” was Maisie’s idea. “They’ll just ask our crowd and that will be about enough. Us five who were there to-day, and Celia, and six boys, will be twelve. That’s plenty.”

“I wish she’d ask Bernice Forbes,” said Dolly, doubtfully, “but I s’pose she won’t.”

“I s’pose she won’t, too,” said Dot. “Pooh, who wants Bernice Forbes?”

“I don’t, for one,” asserted Maisie. “I can’t bear the girl.”

“I don’t see why,” argued Dolly. “She would be all right if people would be nice to her.”

“All right? She _can’t_ be all right,” and Dotty shook her head. “She don’t know _how_ to be all right.”

“That’s so,” and Maisie laughed. “Well, I must go home, girls. I’ve had a lovely fudge party, and I think Genie’s joke was a great success. Tell her so, for me, Dotty.”

“All right, I will,” and with laughing good-byes, Maisie went home and the Two D’s stayed to put things straight. It was their rule never to leave Treasure House untidy over night. Dotty whistled and Dolly sang, as they flew around and soon had things ship-shape.

“Now, Dot,” said Dolly, as they poked out the dying embers of the fire, “I want to tell you something. I’m going to ask Grace to ask Bernice to that party.”

“No, you’re not, Dollyrinda. You think so now, but you go home and think it over, and you’ll see that you’ll spoil the whole party if you do.”

“You mean spoil it for _you_! It won’t for anybody else. Not everybody is as mean as you are to that girl!”

“Nobody likes her, you’ve often said so yourself.”

“All the more reason, then, to have her there and let them learn to like her.”

“Oh, good gracious! you make me tired! Why are you so everlastingly gone on her? Just because she’s rich?”

“Dotty Rose, you take that back! That’s a mean thing to say, and you _know_ it isn’t true. _Don’t_ you?”

“Well, I never knew you to care for anybody for that reason before; but I can’t think of any other.”

“Well, that _isn’t_ the reason, and you know it perfectly well. Now, I’ll tell you what the reason is, if you can understand it, and I don’t know as you can. It’s because I’m sorry for her. Everybody snubs her, and she’d just love to be liked and sought after.”

“Oh, she _would_, would she? Then why doesn’t she make herself liked and sought after?”

“How can she, if we don’t give her a chance?”

“Let her make her own chance.”

“But, she can’t, Dotty. If no one invites her anywhere, how can she make herself agreeable and pleasant to them?”

“Let her give a party herself, and invite us.”

“I’ve no doubt she’d be glad to, if she thought we’d go to it. But if we snub her right and left, she won’t dare ask us.”

“Well, let her be more pleasant at school, then. She’s stuck-up and proudy, and she thinks she’s the whole world. Oh, let up, Dolly! what do you want to bother with her for? There are enough in our crowd already. And we just plain don’t want her.”

“Dot, you’re horrid. Can’t you feel sorry for her? Put yourself in her place. How would you feel if everybody turned the cold shoulder to you?”

“I’d be so gay and merry they’d _have_ to like me.”

“Oh, that’s all very well, because everybody _does_ like you. But if they snubbed you, what then?”

“Why, Dollops, if I deserved it, I’d have to grin and bear it, I ’spect. But facts is facts. You can’t make Bernie Forbes over, and unless you can, you can’t make people like her, and that’s all there is about it. And another thing, Doll. I know and you know your high and noble aim in this matter, but the others don’t, and wouldn’t believe it if they did. You go on like this, and people will soon be saying that you’re toadying to Bernice Forbes just because she’s the richest girl in town. And you’ll see what they’ll think of that!”

“Pooh, I don’t care if they do. Bernice hasn’t any mother, and her father is a stern, grumpy old thing, and I _am_ sorry for her, and I _am_ going to do anything I can to help her have a good time, and I _am_ going to coax Grace Rawlins to ask her to the Hallowe’en party! So there, now, Miss Dorothy Rose, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

When Dolly was in earnest, she was very much so, and Dotty well knew there was no use combating her in this mood. So she changed her tactics, and said, laughingly, “Well, don’t let _us_ quarrel about it anyway. And it’s time to go home now. Come on.”

“No, I won’t come on, till you say you’ll help me in my plan. If you and I both ask Grace to ask Bernie, she’ll do it. But if I ask her, and then you go to her, and ask her _not_ to, she _won’t_ do it. And I know that’s _just_ what you’ll do!”

As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Dotty _had_ intended to do. In fact, she had already planned in her quick-working mind, to telephone the moment she got home, to Grace, and ask her _not_ to consent to Dolly’s request. It wasn’t that Dotty had such rooted objections to Bernice, but she _was_ unattractive and stiff, and, moreover, exceedingly critical. And too, Dotty didn’t care so especially about the party, but she didn’t want Bernice included in the six girls who made up “their crowd,” and if Dolly took her up so desperately, first thing they knew, she would be in the “crowd” and she would be all the time coming to Treasure House, and—here was the rub,—Dotty feared, way down deep in her inmost heart, that Bernice might cut her out with Dolly, and that would be the crowning tragedy! It was scarcely possible, of course, but Dolly took strange notions sometimes, and Dotty was taking no chances on such a catastrophe.

“All right, I’ll promise not to say anything to Grace at all, about it. But I won’t promise to coax her to ask Bernice, for I don’t want her to. Aw, Dollyrinda, let up on that crazy scheme. It’s only a whim. And don’t you see, if you get her asked there, and she _doesn’t_ have a good time, she’ll wish she hadn’t come after all. And so you’ll be giving her a disappointment instead of a pleasure.”

“But she would have a good time. I’d see that she did.”

“_Yes_, you would! And how? Why, you’d ask the boys to be nice to her, and dance with her and everything. And—would they do it? They would _not_! _Did_ they do it, when you asked them at the High School Dance? They did _not_!”

“How do you know?”

“Lollie told me. He said it was ducky of you to try to be so nice to her, but it wouldn’t go down. The boys just simply plain won’t,—and you know it.”

“Isn’t it mean of them, Dot? Don’t you think it is?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I keep telling you, Dolly, if Bernice was nice to people, you wouldn’t have to try to boost her. And if she isn’t, boosting won’t do any good. There’s the whole thing in a nutshell. Now we _must_ go home, or they’ll be sending over after us.”

“Yes, I s’pose we must. Well, Dot, I’ll see about this thing. I’ve got to think it over.”

“All right, old slowpoke thinker! And say, Dollops, you aren’t mad at what Genie did, are you?”

“Oh, goodness no. You know I don’t like practical jokes much; you know how I hated that one they played on Miss Partland, but I’m not mad at Genie, of course not.”

“Good for you. But I’ll see that she isn’t allowed to do such a thing again.”