Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/234

 rigging up at home. Didn't you use to do that, Tina?"

The lady shook her head decidedly.

"If I'd ever got hold of a—well, if I'd had a chance of things as nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr. Armstrong! I'd have been saving it."

"But at that age—" he protested.

"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she insisted.

"But you don't think of those things—you go in for the fun," he urged.

"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."

"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually."

"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped, hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline, observing the motion, came over a little shyly