“O her hair! her hair!” cried Betsey in distress, plunging her hand in after the poor little lady. She hastily dried her in a big towel, and took off the little silk cap to see what damage was done. “It isn’t so bad,” she decided, feeling of the yellow braid. “The silk made very good rubber. Now Mr. Darling can go in.”
And she plunged him in all over. The other dolls were greatly surprised. “We didn’t know you had caught a fish,” they said.
“Go and look in my fish basket,” said Mr. Darling.
And when they looked in the basket they found two tiny paper blue-fish that Betsey had secretly cut out and hidden there.
“We must take them to Dinah to cook. I am starved,” said Mrs. Delight, climbing out.
Betsey had just about time enough to get the family dry and dressed when Dinah called them to dinner. “It will be all right if Mrs. Darling’s hair _is_ down to dry,” decided Betsey. “Cousin Margaret has to dry hers.” And she set them around the table.
“I didn’t know blue-fish grew here,” said Mrs. Delight.
“Pshaw! Don’t let him fool you, honey,” said Dinah scornfully. “I seed him out on de wharf wid de fish man when you-all was busy in de water.”
“He didn’t catch them at all, then,” said Mrs. Delight.
“No,” said Mr. Darling. “But you know I said I’d _get_ the fish; I didn’t promise to catch them.”
And Betsey had to laugh herself to see them laugh. And as she laughed she heard a familiar voice call, “Betsey, dear!”
[Illustration: “DON’T STIR UP THE WATER SO MUCH DOWN THERE,” CALLED MR. DARLING]
But she opened the door and it surely was Mother who stood on the landing with her arms out ready for her busy little daughter.
“You may come down and look in my bag,” she said, kissing Betsey.
And when the black bag was opened, Betsey found two tiny boxes for her.
“I know when they’re tiny, they are for Mrs. Delight,” she giggled, as she unwrapped the tissue papers. Inside she found a beautiful little gilt cuckoo-clock with a tiny bird who really said “cuckoo” when you pulled a cord,—and two smooth, silver-framed mirrors.
“Those mirrors,” said Betsey, almost too pleased to speak, “mean that Mrs. Delight will have to have a new bureau.”
But it really turned out to mean a great deal more,—which is another story!