was complete, that she looked quite like the other old ladies, who were not old at all, only playing old.
“I don’t believe they will know me,” whispered Aunt Crete to herself as she stood before the full-length mirror and surveyed the effect. “And I didn’t think I could ever look like that!” she murmured after a more prolonged gaze, during which she made the acquaintance of her new self. Then she added half wistfully: “I wish I had known it before. I think perhaps they’d have—liked me—more if I’d looked that way all the time.” She sighed half regretfully, as if she were bidding good-by to this new vision, and went out to Donald, who awaited her. She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.
Donald looked up from his paper with a welcome in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him in evening dress, and she thought him handsome as a king.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Aunt Crete; do you know it?” said Donald with satisfaction. He had felt that the French maid would know how to put just the right touch to Aunt Crete’s pretty hair to take away her odd, “unused” appearance. Now she was completely in the fashion, and she looked every inch a lady. She somehow seemed to have natural intuition for gentle manners. Perhaps her kindly heart dictated them, for surely there can be no better manners than come wrapped up with the Golden Rule, and Aunt Crete had lived by that all her life.
They entered the great dining-hall, and made their way among the palms in a blaze of electric light, with the head waiter bowing obsequiously before them. They had a table to themselves, and Aunt Crete rejoiced in the tiny shaded candles and the hothouse roses in the centre, and lifted the handsome napkins and silver forks with awe. Sometimes it seemed as if she were still dreaming.
The party from Pleasure Bay had reached home rather late in the afternoon, after a tedious time in the hot sun at a place full of peanut-stands and merry-go-rounds and moving-picture shows. Luella had not had a good time. She had been disappointed that none of the young men in the party had paid her special attention. In fact, the special young man for whose sake she had prodded her mother into going had not accompanied them at all. Luella was thoroughly cross.
“Mercy, how you’ve burned your nose, Luella!” said her mother sharply. “It’s so unbecoming. The skin is all peeling off. I do wish you’d wear a veil. You can’t afford to lose your complexion, with such a figure as you have.”
“O, fiddlesticks! I wish you’d let up on that, ma,” snapped Luella. “Didn’t you get a letter from Aunt Crete? I wonder what she’s thinking about not to send that lavender organdie. I wanted to wear it to-night. There’s to be a hop in the ballroom, and that would be just the thing. She ought to have got it done; she’s had time enough since I telephoned. I suppose she’s gone to reading again. I do wish I’d remembered to lock up the bookcase. She’s crazy for novels.”
All this time Luella was being buttoned into a pink silk muslin heavily decorated with cheap lace. There were twenty-six tiny elusive buttons, and Luella’s mother was tired.
“What on earth makes you so long, ma?” snarled Luella, twisting her neck to try to see her back. “We’ll be so late we won’t get served, and I’m hungry as a bear.”
They hurried down, arriving at the door just as Aunt Crete and Donald were being settled into their chairs by the smiling head waiter.
“For goodness’ sake! those must be swells,” said Luella in a low tone. “Did you see how that waiter bowed and smiled? He never does that to us. I expect he got a big tip. See, they’re sitting right next our table. Goodness, ma, your hair is all slipped to one side. Put it up quick. No, the other side. Say, he’s an awfully handsome young man. I wonder if we can get introduced. I just know he dances gracefully. Say, mother, I’d like to get him for a partner to-night. I guess those stuck-up Grandons would open their eyes then.”
“Hush, Luella; he’ll hear you.”
They settled into their places unassisted by the dilatory waiter, who came languidly up a moment later to take their order.
Aunt Crete’s back was happily toward her relatives, and so she ate her dinner in comfort. The palms were all about, and the gentle clink of silver and glass, and refined voices. The soft strains of an orchestra hidden in a balcony of ferns and palms drowned Luella’s strident voice when it was raised in discontented strain, and so Aunt Crete failed to recognize the sound. But Donald had been on the alert. In the first place, he had asked a question or two, and knew about where his relatives usually sat, and had purposely asked to be placed near them. He studied Luella when she came in, and felt pretty sure she was the girl he had seen on the platform of the train the morning he arrived in Midvale; and finally in a break in the music he distinctly caught the name “Luella” from the lips of the sour woman in the purple satin with white question-marks all over it and plasters of white lace.
Aunt Carrie was tall and thin, with a discontented droop to her lips, and premature wrinkles. She wore an affected air of abnormal politeness and disapproval of everything. She was studying the silver-gray silk back in front of her and wondering what there was about that elegant-looking woman with the lovely white waved pompadour and puffs, and that exquisite real lace collar, to remind her of poor sister Lucretia. She always coupled the adjective “poor” with her sister’s name when she thought of all her shortcomings.
Luella’s discontent was somewhat enlivened by the sight of the young man that had not gone on the drive to Pleasure Bay. He stood in the doorway, searching the room with keen, interested eyes. Could it be that he was looking for her? Luella’s heart leaped in a moment’s triumph. Yes, he seemed to be looking that way as if he had found the object of his search, and he was surely coming down toward them with a real smile on his face. Luella’s face broke into preparatory smiles. She would be very coy, and pretend not to see him; so she began a voluble and animated conversation with her mother about the charming time they had had that day, which might have surprised the worthy woman if she had not been accustomed to her daughter’s wiles. She knew it to be a warning of the proximity of some one that Luella wished to charm.
The young man came on straight by the solicitous waiters, who waved him frantically to various tables. Luella cast a rapid side glance, and talked on gayly with drooping head and averted gaze. Her mother looked up, wondering, to see what was the cause of Luella’s animation. He was quite near now, and in a moment more he would speak. The girl felt excited thrills creeping up her back, and the color rushed into her cheeks, which were already red enough from the wind and sun of the day.
“Well, well,” said the young man’s voice in a hearty eagerness Luella had never hoped to hear addressed to herself, “this is too good to be true. Don, old man, where did you drop from? I saw your name in the register, and rushed right into the dining-room——”
“Clarence Grandon, as true as I live!” said a pleasant voice behind Luella. “I thought you were in Europe, bless your heart. This is the best thing that could have happened. Let me introduce my aunt——”
Some seconds before this Luella’s thrills had changed to chills. Mortification stole over her face and up to the roots of her hair. Even the back of her neck, where her bathing-suit was cut low and square, turned angry-looking. The pink muslin had a round neck, and showed a half-circle of whiter neck below the bathing-suit square. But Luella had the presence of mind to smile on to her mother in mild pretence that she had but just noticed the advent of the young man behind. An obsequious waiter was bringing an extra chair for Mr. Grandon, and he was to be seated so that he could look toward their table. Perhaps he would recognize her yet, and there might be a chance of introduction to the handsome stranger. Luella dallied with her dinner in fond hope, and her mother aided and abetted her.
The
