"Oh, Miss Mercer, what do we have to do this morning?" shouted Dolly as
soon as she saw Bessie and the Guardian.

"What you like until after lunch, Dolly. Then perhaps we may want to
arrange to do something all together--have a cooking lesson, or learn
something about the farm. We'll see. But you and Bessie might as well go
over the place now and get acquainted with it. Bessie can probably find
her way about easier than you city girls."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Dolly. "Come on, Bessie! I bet we can have lots
of sport."

So they went off, and, though Bessie wanted to see the great barn in
which the horses were kept, Dolly wanted to go toward the road at the
entrance of the place, and Bessie yielded, since the choice of direction
didn't seem a bit important then.

"I saw one of those boys who drove us up last night going off this way,"
Dolly explained, guilelessly, "and, Bessie, he looked ever so much nicer
in his blue overalls than he did in that horrible, stiff, black suit he
was wearing last night."

"You shouldn't laugh at his clothes. They're his very best, Dolly. The
overalls are just his working clothes, and you'd hurt his feelings
terribly if he knew that you were laughing at the store clothes. He
probably had to save up his money for a long time to buy them."

"Oh, well, I don't care! I wonder if there's any place around here where
you can buy ice-cream soda? I'm just dying to have some."