it, Dorothy C.?”
“Surely. After her put Jane Potter.”
James was listening now and inquired:
“What you raking up old times for, Dorothy? Inviting them south-siders that made such a lot of trouble when you lived ‘up-mounting’ afore your folks leased their farm?”
“Whose ‘Party’ is this?” asked the young hostess, calmly, yet with a twinkle in her eye.
“All of our’n,” answered Alfaretta, complacently.
“How many girls now, Alfy?” questioned Molly, who longed to suggest some of her schoolmates but didn’t like a similar reproof to that which fell so harmlessly from Alfaretta’s mind.
“Five,” said the secretary, counting upon her fingers. “Me, and you, and her, and – five. Correct.”
“Mabel Bruce.”
“Who’s she? I never heard of her,” wondered Molly, while Jim answered:
“She’s a girl ’way down in Baltimore. Why, Dorothy C., you know she can’t come here!”
“Why not? Listen, all of you. This is to be my House Party. It’s to be the very nicest ever was. One that everyone who is in it will never, never forget. My darling Aunt Betty gave me permission to ask anybody I chose and to do anything I wanted. She said I had learned some of the lessons of poverty and now I had to begin the harder ones of having more money than most girls have. She said that I mustn’t feel badly if the money brought me enemies and some folks got envious.”
Here, all unseen by the speaker, honest Alfaretta winced and put her hand to her face; but she quickly dropped it, to listen more closely.
“Mabel was a dear friend even when I was that ‘squalling baby’ Alfy wrote about. I am to telegraph for her and to send her a telegraphic order for her expenses, though Aunt Betty wasn’t sure that would be acceptable to Mr. and Mrs. Bruce. To prevent any misunderstanding on that point, you are to make the telegram real long and explicit. I reckon that’s what it means to be that committee Molly named. She’ll make six girls and that’s enough. Six boys – how many yet Alfy?”
“Three. Them two that are and the one that isn’t.”
“Mike Martin.”
Both Jim and Alfy exclaimed in mutual protest:
“Why Dorothy! That fellow? you must be crazy.”
“No, indeed! I’m the sanest one here. That boy is doing the noblest work anybody ever did on this dear old mountain; he’s making and keeping the peace between south-side and north-side.”
“How do you know, Dorothy?” asked Jim, seriously.
“No matter how I know but I do know. Why, I wouldn’t leave him out of my Party for anything. I’d almost rather be out of it myself!”
Then both he and Alfaretta remembered that winter day on the mountain when Dorothy had been the means of saving Mike Martin from an accidental death and the quiet conference afterward of the two, in that inner room of the old forge under the Great Balm Tree. Probably something had happened then and there to make Dolly so sure of Mike’s worthiness. But she was already passing on to “next,” nodding toward Alfy, with the words:
“The two Smith boys, Littlejohn and Danny.”
Jim Barlow laughed but did not object. The sons of farmer Smith were jolly lads and deserved a good time, once in their hard-worked lives; yet he did stare when Dorothy concluded her list of lads with the name:
“Frazer Moore.”
“You don’t know him very well, Dolly girl. Beside that, he’ll make an odd number. He’s the seventh – ”
“Son of the seventh son – fact!” interrupted Alfaretta; “and now we’ll have to find another girl to match him.”
“I’ve found the girl, Dolly, but she won’t match. Helena Montaigne came up on the train by which your Father John left for the north. You could hardly leave her out from your House Party, or from givin’ her the bid to it, any way.”
“Helena home? Oh! I am so glad, I am so glad! Of course, she’ll get the ‘bid’; I’ll take it to her myself the first thing to-morrow morning. But you didn’t mention Herbert. Hasn’t he come, too?”
James Barlow nodded assent but grudgingly. He had never in his heart quite forgiven Herbert Montaigne for their difference in life; as if it were the fault of the one that he had been born the son of the wealthy owner of The Towers and of the other that he was a penniless almshouse child. Second thoughts, however, always brought nobler feeling into the honest heart of Jim and a flush of shame rose to his face as he forced himself to answer.
“Yes, course. The hull fambly’s here.”
Dorothy checked the teasing words which rose to her lips, for when ambitious Jim relapsed so hopelessly into incorrect speech it was a sign that he was deeply moved; and it was a relief to see Alfaretta once more diligently count upon her fingers and to hear her declare:
“We’ll never’ll get this here list straight and even, never in this endurin’ world. First there’s a girl too many and now there’s a girl too short!”
“Never mind; we’ll make them come out even some way, and I’ll find another girl. I don’t know who, yet, and we mustn’t ask any more or there’ll be no places for them to sleep. Now we’ve settled the guests let’s settle the time. We’ll have to put it off two or three days, to let them get here. I wish your cousin Tom Hungerford could be asked to join us but I don’t suppose he could come,” said Dolly to her friend Molly.
“No, he couldn’t. It was the greatest favor his getting off just for those few hours. A boy might as well be in prison as at West Point!”
“What? At that ‘heavenly’ place? Let’s see. This is Wednesday night. Saturday would be a nice time to begin the Party, don’t you all think?”
“Fine. Week-end ones always do begin on Saturday but the trouble is they break up on Monday after;” answered Molly.
“Then ours is to be a double week-ender. Aunt Betty said ‘invite them for a week.’ That’s seven days, and now Master Stark comes your task. As a committee of entertainment you are to provide some new, some different, fun for us every single one of those seven days; and it must be something out of the common. I long, I just long to have my home-finding House Party so perfectly beautiful that nobody in it will ever, ever forget it!”
Looking into her glowing face the few who were gathered about her inwardly echoed her wish, and each, in his or her own way, resolved to aid in making it as “perfect” as their young hostess desired.
Monty heaved a prodigious sigh.
“You’ve given me the biggest task, Dolly Doodles! When a fellow’s brain is no better than mine – ”
“Nonsense, Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You know in your little insides that you’re ‘’nigh tickled to death’ as Alfy would say. Aren’t you the one who always plans the entertainments – the social ones – at your school, Brentnor Hall? You’re as proud as Punch this minute, and you know it, sir. Don’t pretend otherwise!” reproved
