""Oh, no, sir, oh, please, sir,"" simpered Carol, with an adorable curtesy, ""you"d better wait for the ladies, sir.""
"Oh, Carol, I think you"re awful," said their aunt unhappily. "I know your father won"t like it."
"Like it? He"ll love it. Won"t he, Connie?"
"Well, I"m not sure he"ll be crazy about it, but it"ll be all over when he gets home," said Connie.
"And you"re very much in favor of it, aren"t you, Connie precious?"
"Yes, I am." Connie looked at Lark critically again. "We must get Lark some bright flowers to wear with the silver dress--sweet peas would be good. But I won"t pay for them, and you can put that down right now."
"But what"s the idea?" mourned Lark. "What"s the sense in it? Father said to be good to him, and you know I can"t think of things to say to a millionaire"s son. Oh, Carol, don"t be so mean."
"You must practise up. You must be girlish, and light-hearted, and ingenuous, you know. That"ll be very effective."
"You do it, Carol. Let me be the maid. You"re lots more effective than I am."
But Carol stood firm, and the others yielded to her persuasions. They didn"t approve, they didn"t sanction, but they did get enthusiastic, and a merrier houseful of masqueraders was never found than that. Even Aunt Grace allowed her qualms to be quieted and entered into her part as semi-invalid auntie with genuine zest.
At three they were all arrayed, ready for the presentation. They a.s.sembled socially in the parlor, the dainty maid ready to fly to her post at a second"s warning. At four o"clock, they were a little f.a.gged and near the point of exasperation, but they still held their characters admirably. At half past four a telegraph message was phoned out from the station.
"Delayed in coming. Will write you later. Very sorry. Andy Hedges, Jr."
Only the absolute ludicrousness of it saved Carol from a rage. She looked from the girlish tennis girl to the semi-invalid auntie, and then to the sweet young daughter of the home, and burst out laughing. The others, though tired, nervous and disappointed, joined her merrily, and the vexation was swept away.
The next morning, Aunt Grace went as usual to the all-day meeting of the Ladies" Aid in the church parlors. Carol and Lark, with a light lunch, went out for a few hours of spring-time happiness beside the creek two miles from town.
"We"ll come back right after luncheon," Carol promised, "so if Andy the Second should come, we"ll be on hand."
"Oh, he won"t come to-day."
"Well, he just better get here before father comes home. I know father will like our plan after it"s over, but I also know he"ll veto it if he gets home in time. Wish you could go with us, Connie."
"Thanks. But I"ve got to sew on forty b.u.t.tons. And--if I pick the cherries on the little tree, will you make a pie for dinner?"
"Yes. If I"m too tired Larkie will. Do pick them, Con, the birds have had more than their share now."
After her sisters had disappeared, Connie considered the day"s program.
"I"ll pick the cherries while it"s cool. Then I"ll sew on the b.u.t.tons.
Then I"ll call on the Piersons, and they"ll probably invite me to stay for luncheon." And she went up-stairs to don a garment suitable for cherry-tree service. For cherry trees, though lovely to behold when laden with bright red cl.u.s.ters showing among the bright green leaves, are not at all lovely to climb into. Connie knew that by experience.
Belonging to a family that wore its clothes as long as they possessed any wearing virtue, she found nothing in her immediate wardrobe fitted for the venture. But from a rag-bag in the closet at the head of the stairs, she resurrected some remains of last summer"s apparel. First she put on a blue calico, but the skirt was so badly torn in places that it proved insufficiently protecting. Further search brought to light another skirt, pink, in a still worse state of delapidation. However, since the holes did not occur simultaneously in the two garments, by wearing both she was amply covered. For a waist she wore a red c.r.a.pe dressing sacque, and about her hair she tied a broad, ragged ribbon of red to protect the soft waves from the ruthless twigs. She looked at herself in the mirror. Nothing daunted by the sight of her own unsightliness, she took a bucket and went into the back yard.
Gingerly she climbed into the tree, gingerly because Connie was not fond of scratches on her anatomy, and then began her task. It was a glorious morning. The birds, frightened away by the living scare-crow in the tree, perched in other, cherry-less trees around her and burst into derisive song. And Connie, light-hearted, free from care, in love with the whole wide world, sang, too, pausing only now and then to thrust a ripe cherry between her teeth.
She did not hear the prolonged ringing of the front-door bell. She did not observe the young man in the most immaculate of white spring suits who came inquiringly around the house. But when the chattering of a saucy robin became annoying, she flung a cherry at him crossly.
"Oh, chase yourself!" she cried. And nearly fell from her perch in dismay when a low voice from beneath said pleasantly:
"I beg your pardon! Miss Starr?"
Connie swallowed hard, to get the last cherry and the mortification out of her throat.
"Yes," she said, noting the immaculate white spring suit, and the handsome shoes, and the costly Panama held so lightly in his hand. She knew the Panama was costly because they had wanted to buy one for her father"s birthday, but decided not to.
"I am Andrew Hedges," he explained, smiling sociably.
Connie wilted completely at that. "Good night," she muttered with a vanishing mental picture of their lovely preparations the day previous.
"I--mean good morning. I"m so glad to meet you. You--you"re late, aren"t you? I mean, aren"t you ahead of yourself? At least, you didn"t write, did you?"
"No, I was not detained so long as I had antic.i.p.ated, so I came right on. But I"m afraid I"m inconveniencing you."
"Oh, not a bit, I"m quite comfortable," she a.s.sured him. "Auntie is gone just now, and the twins are away, too, but they"ll all be back presently." She looked longingly at the house. "I"ll have to come down, I suppose."
"Let me help you," he offered eagerly. Connie in the incongruous clothes, with the little curls straying beneath the ragged ribbon, and with stains of cherry on her lips, looked more presentable than Connie knew.
"Oh, I--" she hesitated, flushing. "Mr. Hedges," she cried imploringly, "will you just go around the corner until I get down. I look fearful."
"Not a bit of it," he said. "Let me take the cherries."
Connie helplessly pa.s.sed them down to him, and saw him carefully depositing them on the ground. "Just give me your hand."
And what could Connie do? She couldn"t sternly order a millionaire"s son to mosy around the house and mind his own business until she got some decent clothes on, though that was what she yearned to do. Instead she held out a slender hand, grimy and red, with a few ugly scratches here and there, and allowed herself to be helped ignominiously out from the sheltering branches into the garish light of day.
She looked at him reproachfully. He never so much as smiled.
"Laugh if you like," she said bitterly. "I looked in the mirror. I know all about it."
"Run along," he said, "but don"t be gone long, will you? Can you trust me with the cherries?"
Connie walked into the house with great decorum, afraid the ragged skirts might swing revealingly, but the young man bent over the cherries while she made her escape.
It was another Connie who appeared a little later, a typical tennis girl, all in white from the velvet band in her hair to the canvas shoes on her dainty feet. She held out the slender hand, no longer grimy and stained, but its whiteness still marred with sorry scratches.
"I am glad to see you," she said gracefully, "though I can only pray you won"t carry a mental picture of me very long."
"I"m afraid I will though," he said teasingly.
"Then please don"t paint me verbally for my sisters" ears; they are always so clever where I am concerned. It is too bad they are out.
You"ll stay for luncheon with me, won"t you? I"m all alone,--we"ll have it in the yard."
"It sounds very tempting, but--perhaps I had better come again later in the afternoon."
"You may do that, too," said Connie. "But since you are here, I"m afraid I must insist that you help amuse me." And she added ruefully, "Since I have done so well amusing you this morning."
"Why, he"s just like anybody else," she was thinking with relief. "It"s no trouble to talk to him, at all. He"s nice in spite of the millions.
Prudence says millionaires aren"t half so dollar-marked as they are cartooned, anyhow."