The Automobile Girls at Washington Part 8

"Poor Hugh and Elmer were so mortified at not having enough money with them to pay the fine. It was just an accident. Yet it was truly my fault," Ruth argued. "Father has always insisted that I take my pocket-book whenever I go out of the house. But, of course, I forgot it yesterday."

"Will Uncle Robert be very angry with you, Ruth, for being arrested?"

Harriet asked. "He need never find out anything about it. Your fine wasn't so very large, and you always have money enough to pay for anything."

Ruth laughed. "Oh, I always tell Father every thing! I don't think he will be very angry with me, when he hears how we happened to get into trouble."

"Do you really tell your father everything?" Harriet asked, in a surprised tone.

"Why, yes; why not?" Ruth questioned.

Harriet shook her head. "Well, I do not tell my father all my affairs.

Oh, dear me, no!"

"I suppose I shall have to go back to Alexandria to-day, and appear at court," Ruth lamented. "I just dread it."

"Oh, no you won't," Bab explained. "Mr. Dillon said he would talk matters over with Mr. Hamlin, and that he had some influential friends over there. You will have to pay your fine, Ruth, but you probably will not have to appear at the trial. They will settle it privately."

"Girls," exclaimed Harriet, "I forgot to tell you something. There is a big reception at the White House to-morrow evening, and Father says he wishes to take the 'Automobile Girls' to present them to the President."

"How exciting!" exclaimed Grace Carter. "To think that the 'Automobile Girls' are going to meet the President, and yet you speak of it as calmly, Harriet Hamlin, as though it were an everyday affair."

"Oh, nonsense, Grace," Harriet begged. "It will be fun to go to the White House with you. You girls are so interested in everything. But a White House reception is an old story to me, and I am afraid there will be a frightful crowd. But which one of you will go shopping with me this morning?"

"I will," cried Mollie. "I'd dearly love to see the shops. We don't have any big stores in Kingsbridge."

"Is there anything I can get for you, girls?" Harriet asked.

Ruth called her cousin over in the corner. "Will you please order flowers for us to-morrow night!" Ruth requested. "Father told me to be sure to get flowers whenever we wanted them."

"Lucky Ruth!" sighed Harriet. "I wish I had such a rich and generous father as you have!"

"What can we wear to the President's reception to-morrow, Bab?" Mollie whispered in her sister's ear, while Harriet and Ruth were having their conference.

Bab thought for a moment. "You can wear the corn-colored frock you wore to dinner with the Princess Sophia at Palm Beach. It is awfully pretty, and you have never worn it since."

"That old thing!" cried Mollie, pouting.

"Suppose you get some pale yellow ribbons, Mollie, and I will make you a new sash and a bow for your hair," Bab suggested.

Pretty Mollie frowned. "All right," she agreed.

Harriet and Mollie did not go at once to the shops. They drove first to Harriet's dressmaker, the most fas.h.i.+onable in Was.h.i.+ngton.

"I must try on a little frock," Harriet explained. "We can do our shopping afterwards. I want you to see a beautiful coat I am having made, from a Chinese crepe shawl the Chinese Minister's wife gave me."

Madame Louise, the head of the dressmaking establishment, came in to attend to Harriet. The new coat was in a wonderful shade of apricot, lined with satin and embroidered in nearly every color of silk.

"Oh, Harriet, how lovely!" Mollie exclaimed.

"Yes, isn't it?" Harriet agreed. "But I really ought not to have had this coat made up. It has cost almost as much as though I had bought it outright. And I don't need it. I hope you have not made my dress very expensive, Madame. I told you to get me up a simple frock."

"Ah, but Miss Hamlin, the simple frocks cost as much as the fancy ones,"

argued the dressmaker. "This little gown is made of the best satin and lace. But how charming is the effect."

Mollie echoed the dressmaker's verdict as she gazed at Harriet with admiring eyes. Harriet's gown was white satin. Her black hair and great dusky eyes looked darker from the contrast and her skin even more startlingly fair.

Harriet could not help a little smile of vanity as she saw herself in the long mirror in the fitting room.

"Be sure to send these things home by to-morrow, Madame Louise," she demanded. "Father and I are going to take our guests to one of the President's receptions and I want to wear this gown."

Mollie gave a little impatient sigh.

"What is the matter, Mollie?" inquired Harriet, seeing that her little friend looked tired and unhappy. "I am awfully sorry to have kept you waiting like this. It is a bore to watch other people try on their clothes. I will come with you directly."

"Oh, I am not tired watching you, Harriet," pretty Mollie answered truthfully. "I was only wis.h.i.+ng I had such a beautiful frock to wear to the reception to-morrow."

Madame Louise clapped her hands. "Wait a minute, young ladies. I have something to show you. You must wait, for it is most beautiful." The dressmaker turned and whispered to one of her girl a.s.sistants. The girl went out and came back in a few minutes with another frock over her arm.

Mollie gave a deep sigh of admiration.

"How exquisite!" Harriet exclaimed. "Whose dress is that, Madame? It looks like clouds or sea foam, or anything else that is delicately beautiful."

Madame shook out a delicate pale blue silk, covered with an even lighter tint of blue chiffon, which shaded gently into white.

"This dress was an order, Miss Hamlin," Madame Louise explained. "I sent to Paris for it. Of course it was some time before it arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton. In the meanwhile a death occurred in the family of the young woman who had ordered the dress. She is now in mourning, and she left the dress with me to sell for her. She is willing to let it go at a great bargain. The little frock would just about fit your young friend. Would she not be beautiful in it, with her pale yellow hair and her blue eyes?

Ah, the frock looks as though it had been created for her! Do you think she would allow me to try it on her?"

"Do slip the frock on, Mollie," Harriet urged. "It will not take much time. And I would dearly love to see you in such a gown. It is the sweetest thing I ever saw."

Mollie shook her head. "It is not worth while for me to put it on, Harriet. Madame must understand that I cannot possibly buy it."

"But the frock is such a bargain, Mademoiselle," the dressmaker continued. "I will sell it to you for a mere song."

"But I haven't the song to pay for it, Madame," Mollie laughed. "Come on, Harriet. We must be going."

"Of course you can't buy the dress, Mollie," Harriet interposed. "But Madame will not mind your just slipping into it. Try it on, just for my sake. I know you will look like a perfect dream."

Mollie could not refuse Harriet's request.

"Shut your eyes, Mollie, while Madame dresses you up," Harriet proposed.

Mollie shut her eyes tightly.

Madame Louise slipped on the gown. "It fits to perfection," she whispered to Harriet. Then the dressmaker, who was really an artist in her line, picked up Mollie's bunch of soft yellow curls and knotted them carelessly on top of Mollie's dainty head. She twisted a piece of the pale blue shaded chiffon into a bandeau around her gold hair.

"Now, look at yourself, Mademoiselle," she cried in triumph.

"Mollie, Mollie, you are the prettiest thing in the world!" Harriet exclaimed.