“She’s used to having her own way,” said Betty, with a laudable ambition to be charitable, an intention which she inadvertently destroyed by adding vigorously:  “She’d get that knocked out of her if she lived West a little while.”

“Guess the East can be trusted to smooth her down,” commented Bob grimly.  “Unless she’s planning to live in seclusion, she won’t get far in peace or happiness unless she behaves a bit more like a human being.”

The girl was more or less in evidence during the rest of the trip and incurred the cordial enmity of every woman in the car by the coolness with which she appropriated the dressing room in the morning and curled her hair and made an elaborate toilet in perfect indifference to the other feminine travelers who were shut out till she had the last hairpin adjusted to her satisfaction.

She was met at the Chicago terminal by a party of gay friends who whisked her off in a palatial car, and Bob and Betty who, acting on Mr. Gordon’s advice, spent their two-hour wait between trains driving along the Lake Shore Drive, forgot her completely.

But first Betty fell victim to the charms of a hat displayed in a smart little millinery shop, and had an argument with Bob in which she came off victor.

“Oh, Bob, what a darling hat!” she had exclaimed, drawing him over to the window as they turned down the first street from the station.  “I must have it; I want to look nice when I meet the girls in Washington.”

“You look nice now,” declared Bob sturdily.  “But if you want to buy it, go ahead,” he encouraged her.  “Ask ’em how much it is, though,” he added, with a sudden recollection of the fabulous prices said to be charged for a yard of ribbon and a bit of lace.

The hat in question was a soft brown beaver that rolled slightly away from the face and boasted as trimming a single scarlet quill.  It was undeniably becoming, and Bob gave it his unqualified approval.

“And you will want a veil?” insinuated the clever young French saleswoman.  “See—­it is charming!”

She threw over the hat a cobwebby pattern of brown silk net embroidered heavily with chenille dots and deftly draped it back from Betty’s glowing face.

“You don’t want a veil!” said Bob bluntly.

Now the mirror told Betty that the veil looked very well indeed, and made her, she was sure of it, prettier.  Betty was a good traveler and the journey had not tired her.  The excitement and pleasure of choosing a new hat had brought a flush to her cheeks, and the shining brown eyes that gazed back at her from the glass assured her that a veil was something greatly to be desired.

“You don’t want it,” repeated Bob.  “You’re only thirteen and you’ll look silly.  Do you want to dress like that girl on the train?”

If Bob had stopped to think he would have realized that his remarks were not exactly tactful.  Especially the reference to Betty’s age, just when she fancied that she looked very grown up indeed.  She was fond of braiding her heavy thick hair and wrapping it around her head so that there were no hair-ribbons to betray her.  In Betty’s experience the border line between a young lady and a little girl was determined by the absence or presence of hair-ribbons.