Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/30

 there, but she was already a little woman, a little Reitz woman—and not so little a woman, at that!

“See what I’ve got for you, Dorothy!” cried out Mrs. Loamford, as she stopped by the open door of her daughter’s room on the third floor of the house. “A surprise!” The framer might have erred, but there was something about the diploma, even as a piece of parchment curled inside a red ribbon, that was undeniably eventful.

“Oh, mother!”

Dorothy’s voice, always smooth and cool, had a little tremor in it. The days before and after graduation had been full of lovely acquisitions, such as wrist-watches (from Uncle Elliott), a handsomely tooled set of Washington Irving (from cousin Ben Wheeler of Utica), an ivory desk set (from Aunt Elsa Reitz of Baltimore, who was said to be very old, very rich and very much interested in her grandniece) and father’s personal gift, a small checking account, along with a complete set of accounting books. What was mother’s surprise? And anyhow, ostentatious gratitude had become something of a habit in the past week.

“Look, Dorothy!”

Mrs. Loamford unwrapped her parcel dramatically, and held up the framed diploma, much as she might have held up an infant snatched from a whirlpool.

“It’s lovely, mother!”

Kisses. Thank-you kisses, to be sure, but hardly distinguishable from the genuine.

“It’s so good of you to have it framed!”

If Dorothy was so pleased, Mrs. Loamford thought, it would be just as well not to tell her of the framer’s blunder.

“I thought my little girl would like to hang it up in her room,” beamed Mrs. Loamford. “Put it over your