Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/31

 new desk, Dorothy. It will be a reminder of your school days.”

Mrs. Loamford, exhausted by the effort of presenting the diploma to Dorothy, sank into the new easy chair.

“My, what a comfortable chair!” she said kittenishly. “You certainly are a lucky girl, Dorothy.”

Dorothy was hardened to this sort of felicitation. She responded automatically with a kiss.

“And I have another surprise,” continued Mrs. Loamford. “Guess what it is.”

Dorothy wondered whether there was much distinction between a donation and a conundrum, but the simplest way to ascertain this unknown benefaction was to ask. “Uncle Elliott is coming to dinner tonight,” explained Mrs. Loamford, as though prophesying a millennium, “and after dinner we're all going to see ‘Little Miss Mercy.’ It’s a very sweet play.”

Kisses.

“There!” said Mrs. Loamford, reciprocating Dorothy’s tokens of affection with a dynamic caress, “now my little girl can put on her beautiful new evening frock. You don’t know how proud I am of you!”

Dorothy shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly as her mother flounced from the room. She was a little weary of these surprises which involved dinner with Uncle Elliott. She liked Uncle Elliott—he was her uncle, you know—but there were more exciting people who might come to dinner. Why couldn’t her parents do what Clemence Earle’s father had done—have a famous tenor as guest of honor at a little supper for his daughter? If she was going to study singing seriously, a famous tenor would be more interesting than Uncle Elliott. They might at least have invited Arnold Deering. She would ask her mother-