brave and cheerful, even to the very moment of farewell, but she found it hard to fight back the terrible feeling of oppression that clutched at her heart.
From her position in the doorway, Marjorie had watched Mary for a moment or two before speaking. She had guessed that the work of packing would be something of a dolorous labor, which Mary might prefer to perform alone. At heart she, too, was sad, but in her mind lurked a pleasant knowledge which for the present Mary did not share. It was this particular bit of knowledge that made it difficult for her to keep a sober face as she met Mary’s doleful gaze.
“I’m going to wear white, too,” she said brightly. “Captain finished my new lingerie frock yesterday. As long as you’re through packing, why not get dressed for dinner now? I’m going to, even if it is only three o’clock. Then when Connie and Charlie come we can take a stroll down to Sargent’s. That is, if we care to.” Again her lovely face threatened to break forth into the smiles.
“All right.” Mary’s acquiescence came rather listlessly. Rising from the floor she began somewhat spiritless preparations toward making ready to receive the expected guests.
“I’m going to my house now to put on my costliest raiment.” Flashing a mischievous glance toward Mary, Marjorie disappeared from the doorway and tripped down the hall. Once inside her “house,” as she had whimsically named her pink and white room, she executed a gleeful little dance for her own benefit. “She doesn’t suspect a thing,” was her jubilant comment.
But while the two girls were engaged in arraying themselves to do honor to Constance, a most peculiar state of affairs was in progress downstairs. Through the wide flung hall door, one after another flitted a mysterious procession of girls, moving with the noiseless tread of a flock of ghosts. Their bright-eyed, smiling faces and gala attire, however, marked them as being particularly human. One of the seven specters bore a strong resemblance to Mary herself, and the diminutive black-eyed sprite she led by the hand seemed on the verge of breaking forth into an ecstatic flow of joyful sounds.
Apparently, Mrs. Dean had also been suddenly bereft of speech. Only her twinkling eyes and smiling lips gave sign of just how greatly welcome were her silent guests. Ushering them into the living room she nodded brightly, laid a warning finger to her lips and softly withdrew, pulling together the silken portieres. A half-smothered giggle, to which no self-respecting ghost would have stooped to give utterance, followed her. Then profound stillness reigned within.
“Are you ready, Mary?” A bewitching, brown-eyed vision in white pranced in upon Mary as she was slowly adjusting the soft loops of her wide, white ribbon sash. “Let me tie your sash.” Marjorie’s nimble fingers set themselves to work. “There you are. You do look so perfectly sweet in white. Now smile and say prettily, ‘Thank you for them kind words, Miss Marjorie.’ That’s what Delia always says when she dresses up and I tell her how fine she looks.”
Marjorie’s buoyant spirits were so irresistible as to bring the coveted light into Mary’s mournful eyes. “Forward, march! Here we go.” Seizing Mary gently by the shoulders she marched her down the hall to the stairway. “Break ranks,” she ordered. “The gallant regiment can’t afford to tumble downstairs.”
“Halt!” came the order, as Mary reached the lower hall a step ahead of her commander. “We will now make an invasion on the living room. Two’s right, march!”
Mary obediently marched. Of her own accord she came to an abrupt halt. “Oh!” she gasped. Her amazed exclamation was drowned in a chorus of gleeful shouts as seven very lively apparitions closed in around her.
“Charlie never said a word!” shrieked a high, triumphant voice. “We comed to see you. Hooray!” A small, joyful figure hurled itself straight into Mary’s arms. She stooped and hugged him close, her golden head bent to the youngster’s. Straightening, she glimpsed the affectionate circle of girls through a mist of unbidden tears. “I’m so glad and so surprised to see all of you,” she faltered. “And you knew it all the time!” She caught Marjorie’s hand.
“Of course I knew it. Now we are even. You gave me a surprise party once, so I thought I’d return the compliment,” laughed Marjorie. “I could hardly keep it to myself, though. Every time I looked at you I wanted to say, ‘Cheer up, the best is yet to come.’”
“It’s a good thing it wasn’t long coming,” retorted Jerry Macy. “I never knew how much I liked to talk until I had to keep still.”
“You must have slipped into the house like shadows,” declared Mary happily. Her sad expression had quite vanished with the unexpected honor that had been done her. She felt that, after all, she held some small place in the affections of Marjorie’s intimate friends, and the cloud of doubt that had obsessed her rolled away.
“We did do that arriving stunt rather well,” was Harriet Delaney’s complacent comment. “Of course, Susie giggled. We expected she would, though. The rest of us were above reproach.”
“No wonder I giggled,” defended Susan Atwell. “If you had been the last one in line you’d have laughed, too. You girls looked as if you were trying to walk on eggshells, and when Jerry crossed the room in about three steps, it was too much for me.” Susan’s cheerful chuckle broke forth anew and went the rounds.
“Well, children, what is your pleasure?” inquired Marjorie. “Shall we stay here, or sit on the veranda, or establish ourselves in the pagoda, or what?”
“The pagoda for mine,” decided Jerry, “provided the rest of you are of the same mind. We can sit in a circle and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings, etc. All those in favor of this lively pastime please say ‘Aye;’ contrary, keep quiet.”
“Aye,” came the willing response.
“What for is ‘Aye?’” calmly demanded Charlie Stevens of Mary, to whom he had immediately attached himself.
“Oh, it means that Charlie can go out with us to the summer house and have a nice time, if he would like to,” explained Mary.
“Charlie don’t want to,” was the frank response. “Where’s Delia?” Fond recollections of frequent visits to the Dean kitchen, invariably productive of toothsome gifts, lurked in the foreground. “Delia likes to see me.”
“You mean you like to see Delia,” laughed Constance. “But you know you came to see Mrs. Dean and Marjorie and Mary,” she reminded.
“I’ve seen them. Now I have to see Delia.”
“Delia wins the day,” smiled Mrs. Dean. “You are all jilted. Very well, Charlie, you and I will pay our respects to Delia. Come on.” She stretched forth an inviting hand to the little boy, who accepted it joyfully, and trotted off with her to invade good-natured Delia’s domain.
“As long as our one cavalier has been lured away from us by Delia we might as well try to console one another,” laughed Marjorie.
“He’s growing terribly spoiled,” apologized Constance. “My aunt adores him and thinks he must have everything he asks for. He’s a good little boy, though, in spite of all the petting he gets.”
“He’s a perfect darling,” dimpled Susan Atwell. “He says such quaint, funny things. Has he ever tried to run away since the night of the operetta?”
“No.” Constance made brief reply. Her gaze wandered to Mary Raymond, who was talking busily with Harriet Delaney and Esther Lind. The vision of a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl, leading a small runaway up to the stage door of the theatre rose before her. Next to Marjorie Dean, Mary ranked second in her heart. Constance
