The next morning the “Automobile Girls” were sitting in the library of Mr. Hamlin’s home. Ruth, Mollie and Grace were there, for Peter and Bab had secured their release from the Alexandria jail.

“But how do you think he ever accomplished it?” Mollie inquired.

Harriet laughed and flushed. “Oh, Peter accomplished it in the same way he does everything else ­by making friends with people,” she declared. “Girls, I hope you realize how ashamed I am of last night’s proceedings. I never dreamed that anything had happened to you, or I should have certainly forced Charlie Meyers to turn back. But I think I have learned a lesson. Charlie Meyers was horribly rude to you, Bab, and I told him what we thought of him after you left. I don’t want to see him again. So Father, at least, will be glad. Though how I am to get on in this world without a husband with money, I don’t know.” And Harriet sighed.

“Still I would like to have my questions answered,” Mollie repeated. “How did Peter Dillon get us away from that wretched jail in such a short time when we thought we might have to stay there all night?”

“Why, he just found the justice of the peace, arranged about Ruth’s fine, mentioned Mr. Hamlin’s name and did a few more things,” Bab laughed. “So, at last, you were permitted to come home.”

“Poor Hugh and Elmer were so mortified at not having enough money with them to pay the fine. It was just an accident. Yet it was truly my fault,” Ruth argued. “Father has always insisted that I take my pocket-book whenever I go out of the house. But, of course, I forgot it yesterday.”

“Will Uncle Robert be very angry with you, Ruth, for being arrested?” Harriet asked. “He need never find out anything about it. Your fine wasn’t so very large, and you always have money enough to pay for anything.”

Ruth laughed. “Oh, I always tell Father every thing! I don’t think he will be very angry with me, when he hears how we happened to get into trouble.”

“Do you really tell your father everything?” Harriet asked, in a surprised tone.

“Why, yes; why not?” Ruth questioned.

Harriet shook her head. “Well, I do not tell my father all my affairs. Oh, dear me, no!”

“I suppose I shall have to go back to Alexandria to-day, and appear at court,” Ruth lamented. “I just dread it.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” Bab explained. “Mr. Dillon said he would talk matters over with Mr. Hamlin, and that he had some influential friends over there. You will have to pay your fine, Ruth, but you probably will not have to appear at the trial. They will settle it privately.”

“Girls,” exclaimed Harriet, “I forgot to tell you something. There is a big reception at the White House to-morrow evening, and Father says he wishes to take the ‘Automobile Girls’ to present them to the President.”

“How exciting!” exclaimed Grace Carter. “To think that the ’Automobile Girls’ are going to meet the President, and yet you speak of it as calmly, Harriet Hamlin, as though it were an everyday affair.”

“Oh, nonsense, Grace,” Harriet begged. “It will be fun to go to the White House with you. You girls are so interested in everything. But a White House reception is an old story to me, and I am afraid there will be a frightful crowd. But which one of you will go shopping with me this morning?”

“I will,” cried Mollie. “I’d dearly love to see the shops. We don’t have any big stores in Kingsbridge.”

“Is there anything I can get for you, girls?” Harriet asked.

Ruth called her cousin over in the corner. “Will you please order flowers for us to-morrow night!” Ruth requested. “Father told me to be sure to get flowers whenever we wanted them.”

“Lucky Ruth!” sighed Harriet. “I wish I had such a rich and generous father as you have!”

“What can we wear to the President’s reception to-morrow, Bab?” Mollie whispered in her sister’s ear, while Harriet and Ruth were having their conference.

Bab thought for a moment. “You can wear the corn-colored frock you wore to dinner with the Princess Sophia at Palm Beach. It is awfully pretty, and you have never worn it since.”

“That old thing!” cried Mollie, pouting.

“Suppose you get some pale yellow ribbons, Mollie, and I will make you a new sash and a bow for your hair,” Bab suggested.

Pretty Mollie frowned. “All right,” she agreed.

Harriet and Mollie did not go at once to the shops. They drove first to Harriet’s dressmaker, the most fashionable in Washington.

“I must try on a little frock,” Harriet explained. “We can do our shopping afterwards. I want you to see a beautiful coat I am having made, from a Chinese crepe shawl the Chinese Minister’s wife gave me.”

Madame Louise, the head of the dressmaking establishment, came in to attend to Harriet. The new coat was in a wonderful shade of apricot, lined with satin and embroidered in nearly every color of silk.

“Oh, Harriet, how lovely!” Mollie exclaimed.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Harriet agreed. “But I really ought not to have had this coat made up. It has cost almost as much as though I had bought it outright. And I don’t need it. I hope you have not made my dress very expensive, Madame. I told you to get me up a simple frock.”

“Ah, but Miss Hamlin, the simple frocks cost as much as the fancy ones,” argued the dressmaker. “This little gown is made of the best satin and lace. But how charming is the effect.”

Mollie echoed the dressmaker’s verdict as she gazed at Harriet with admiring eyes. Harriet’s gown was white satin. Her black hair and great dusky eyes looked darker from the contrast and her skin even more startlingly fair.

Harriet could not help a little smile of vanity as she saw herself in the long mirror in the fitting room.

“Be sure to send these things home by to-morrow, Madame Louise,” she demanded. “Father and I are going to take our guests to one of the President’s receptions and I want to wear this gown.”

Mollie gave a little impatient sigh.

“What is the matter, Mollie?” inquired Harriet, seeing that her little friend looked tired and unhappy. “I am awfully sorry to have kept you waiting like this. It is a bore to watch other people try on their clothes. I will come with you directly.”

“Oh, I am not tired watching you, Harriet,” pretty Mollie answered truthfully. “I was only wishing I had such a beautiful frock to wear to the reception to-morrow.”

Madame Louise clapped her hands. “Wait a minute, young ladies. I have something to show you. You must wait, for it is most beautiful.” The dressmaker turned and whispered to one of her girl assistants. The girl went out and came back in a few minutes with another frock over her arm.

Mollie gave a deep sigh of admiration.

“How exquisite!” Harriet exclaimed. “Whose dress is that, Madame? It looks like clouds or sea foam, or anything else that is delicately beautiful.”

Madame shook out a delicate pale blue silk, covered with an even lighter tint of blue chiffon, which shaded gently into white.

“This dress was an order, Miss Hamlin,” Madame Louise explained. “I sent to Paris for it. Of course it was some time before it arrived in Washington. In the meanwhile a death occurred in the family of the young woman who had ordered the dress. She is now in mourning, and she left the dress with me to sell for her. She is willing to let it go at a great bargain. The little frock would just about fit your young friend. Would she not be beautiful in it, with her pale yellow hair and her blue eyes? Ah, the frock looks as though it had been created for her! Do you think she would allow me to try it on her?”

“Do slip the frock on, Mollie,” Harriet urged. “It will not take much time. And I would dearly love to see you in such a gown. It is the sweetest thing I ever saw.”

Mollie shook her head. “It is not worth while for me to put it on, Harriet. Madame must understand that I cannot possibly buy it.”

“But the frock is such a bargain, Mademoiselle,” the dressmaker continued. “I will sell it to you for a mere song.”

“But I haven’t the song to pay for it, Madame,” Mollie laughed. “Come on, Harriet. We must be going.”

“Of course you can’t buy the dress, Mollie,” Harriet interposed. “But Madame will not mind your just slipping into it. Try it on, just for my sake. I know you will look like a perfect dream.”

Mollie could not refuse Harriet’s request.

“Shut your eyes, Mollie, while Madame dresses you up,” Harriet proposed.

Mollie shut her eyes tightly.

Madame Louise slipped on the gown. “It fits to perfection,” she whispered to Harriet. Then the dressmaker, who was really an artist in her line, picked up Mollie’s bunch of soft yellow curls and knotted them carelessly on top of Mollie’s dainty head. She twisted a piece of the pale blue shaded chiffon into a bandeau around her gold hair.

“Now, look at yourself, Mademoiselle,” she cried in triumph.

“Mollie, Mollie, you are the prettiest thing in the world!” Harriet exclaimed.

Mollie gave a little gasp of astonishment when she beheld herself in the mirror. Certainly she looked like Cinderella after the latter had been touched with the fairy wand. She stood regarding herself with wide open eyes of astonishment, and cheeks in which the rose flush deepened.

“The dress must belong to Mademoiselle! I could not have made such a fit if I had tried,” repeated the dressmaker.

“How much is the dress worth, Madame?” Harriet queried.

“Worth? It is worth one hundred and fifty dollars! But I will give the little frock away for fifty,” the dressmaker answered.

“Can’t you possibly buy it, child?” Harriet pleaded with Mollie. “It is a perfectly wonderful bargain, and you are too lovely in it. I just can’t bear to have you refuse it.”

“I am sorry, Harriet,” Mollie returned firmly. “But I have not the money. Won’t you please take the gown off me, Madame!”

“Your friend can take the frock from me now and pay me later. It does not matter,” said the dressmaker. “She can write home for the money.”

For one foolish moment Mollie did dream that she might write to her mother for the price of this darling blue frock. Mollie was sure she had never desired anything so keenly in her life. But in a moment Mollie came to her senses. Where would her mother get such a large sum of money to send her? It had been hard work for Mrs. Thurston to allow Barbara and Mollie the slight expenses of their trip to Washington. No; the pretty gown was impossible!

“Do unbutton the gown for me, please, Harriet,” Mollie entreated. “I really can’t buy it.” Mollie felt deeply embarrassed, and was sorry she had allowed herself to be persuaded into trying on the gown.

“Mollie!” exclaimed Harriet suddenly. “Don’t you have a monthly allowance?”

Mollie nodded her head. Silly Mollie hoped Harriet would not ask her just what her allowance was. For Mrs. Thurston could give her daughters only five dollars a month apiece for their pin money.

“Then I know just what to do,” Harriet declared. “You must just buy this frock, Mollie dear. I expect to have a dividend from some stock I own, and when it comes in, I shall pay Madame for the dress, and you can pay me back as it suits you. Do please consent, Mollie. Just look at yourself in the glass once more and I know you can’t resist my plan.”

Mollie did take one more peep at herself in the mirror. But if she had only had more time to think, and Harriet and the dressmaker had not argued the point with her, she would never have fallen before her temptation.

“You are sure you won’t mind how long I take to pay you back, Harriet?” Mollie inquired weakly.

“Sure!” Harriet answered.

“All right then; I will take it,” Mollie agreed in a sudden rush of recklessness, feeling dreadfully excited. For little Mollie Thurston had never owned a gown in her life that had cost more than fifteen dollars, except the two or three frocks which had been given to her on different occasions.

“Madame, you will send Miss Thurston’s gown with mine, so she can wear it to the White House reception,” Harriet insisted.

“Certainly; I shall send the frocks this evening,” the dressmaker agreed, suavely. “But are you sure you will be in? I want you to be at home when the frocks arrive.”

Several other customers had entered Madame Louise’s establishment.

Harriet Hamlin flushed at the dressmaker’s question. But she replied carelessly: “Oh, yes; I shall be in all the afternoon. You can send them at any time you like.”

Before Mollie and Harriet had gotten out into the street, Mollie clutched Harriet’s arm in swift remorse. “Oh, Harriet, dear, I have done a perfectly awful thing! I must go back and tell Madame that I cannot take that gown. I don’t see how I could have said I would take it. Why, it will take me ages to pay you so much money!” Mollie’s eyes were big and frightened. Her lips were trembling.

“Sh-sh! You silly child!” Harriet protested. “Here comes Mrs. Wilson. You can’t go to tell Madame Louise you have changed your mind before so many people. And what is the use of worrying over such a small debt? The dress was a wonderful bargain. You would be a goose not to buy it.”

Now, because Harriet was older than Mollie, and Mollie thought her very beautiful and well trained in all the graces of society, foolish little Mollie allowed herself to be silenced, and so made endless trouble for herself and for the people who loved her.

“Don’t tell Barbara about my buying the frock, Harriet,” Mollie pleaded, as the two girls went up the steps of the Hamlin home, a short time before luncheon. “I would rather tell Bab about it myself, when I get a chance.”

“Oh, I won’t tell. You may count on me,” promised Harriet, in sympathetic tones. “Will Bab be very cross!”

“Oh, not exactly that,” Mollie hesitated. “But I am afraid she will be worried. I am glad we are at home. I want to lie down, I feel so tired.”

Not long after Harriet and Mollie had started off on their shopping expedition, Bab came across from her room into Ruth’s.

“Ruth, do you think I could telephone Mr. Dillon?” she asked. “I picked up a piece of paper that he dropped in the garden yesterday, and I forgot to return it to him.”

“Give it to me, child. I told you yesterday that I did not wish you to grow to be an intimate friend of that man. But I am writing him a note to thank him for his kindness to us last night. I can just put your paper in my letter and explain matters to him.”

Bab carelessly tossed the sheet of paper on Ruth’s desk. It opened, and Ruth cried out in astonishment. “Oh, Bab, how queer! This note is written in Chinese characters. What do you suppose Peter Dillon is doing with a letter written in Chinese?”

“I don’t know I am sure, Ruth,” Bab demurred. “It is none of our business.”

“Did you get the yellow ribbon, Mollie?” Barbara asked her sister, two hours later, when Mollie and Harriet came in from their shopping. “I have been fixing up your dress all morning. It is awfully pretty. Now I want to make the sash.”

“I did not get any ribbons, Bab.” Mollie answered peevishly. “I told you I would not wear that old yellow dress.”