"I never seen no one like her," muttered the delighted Sepoy, returning to her vigorous cleaning of kettles and pans. "I never seen no one like none on "em, they "re that there good-natured an" easy on folk."
It was a busy day for Dolly, as well as for the rest of them, and there was a by no means unpleasant excitement in the atmosphere of business.
The cookery, too, was a success, the game pates being a triumph, the tarts beautiful to behold, and the rest of the culinary experiments so marvellous, that Griffith, arriving early in the morning, and being led down into the pantry to look at them as a preliminary ceremony, professed to be struck dumb with admiration.
"There," said Dolly, backing up against the wall in her excitement, and thrusting her hands very far into her ap.r.o.n pockets indeed,--"there!
what do you think of _that_, sir?" And she stood before him in a perfect glow of triumph, her cheeks like roses, her sleeves rolled above her dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her general appearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professional that the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costume seemed only an additional charm.
"Think of it?" said Griffith. "It is the most imposing display I ever saw in my life. The tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs upon those tarts are positively artistic.
You don"t mean to say you did it all yourself?"
"Yes," regarding them critically,--"ev-er-y bit," with a little nod for every syllable.
"Won-der-ful!" with an air of complimentary incredulity. "May I ask if there is anything you can _not_ do?"
"There is absolutely nothing," sententiously. And then somehow or other they were standing close together, as usual, his arm around her waist, her hands clasped upon his sleeve. "When we get the house in Putney, or Bayswater, or Peckham Eise, or whatever it is to be," she said, laughing in her most coaxing way, "this sort of thing will be convenient. And it _is_ to come, you know,--the house, I mean."
"Yes," admitted Griffith, with dubious cheerfulness, "it _is_ to come,--some time or other."
But her cheerfulness was not of a dubious kind at all. She only laughed again, and patted his arm with a charming air of proprietors.h.i.+p.
"I have got something else to show you," she said; "something up-stairs.
Can you guess what it is? Something for Mollie,--something she wanted which is dreadfully extravagant."
"What!" exclaimed Griffith. "Not the maroon silk affair!"
"Yes," her doubt as to the wisdom of her course expressing itself in a whimsical little grimace. "I could n"t help it. It will make her so happy; and I should so have liked it myself if I had been in her place."
She had been going to lead him up-stairs to show it to him as it lay in state, locked up in the parlor, but all at once she changed her mind.
"No," she said; "I think you had better not see it until Mollie comes down in state. It will look best then; so I won"t spoil the effect by letting you see it now."
Griffith had brought his offering, too,--not much of an offering, perhaps, but worth a good deal when valued according to the affectionate good-will it represented. "The girls" had a very warm corner in the young man"s tender heart, and the half-dozen pairs of gloves he produced from the shades of an inconvenient pocket of his great-coat, held their own modest significance.
"Gloves," he said, half apologetically, "always come in; and I believe I heard Mollie complaining of hers the other day."
Certainly they were appreciated by the young lady in question, their timely appearance disposing of a slight difficulty of addition to her toilet.
The maroon silk was to be a surprise; and surely, if ever surprise was a success, this was. Taking into consideration the fact that she had spent the earlier part of the day in plaintive efforts to remodel a dubious garment into a form fitting to grace the occasion, it is not to be wondered at that the sudden realization of one of her most hopelessly vivid imaginings rather destroyed the perfect balance of her equilibrium.
She had almost completed her toilet when Dolly produced her treasure; nothing, in fact, remained to be done but to don the dubious garment, when Dolly, slipping out of the room, returned almost immediately with something on her arm.
"Never mind your old alpaca, Mollie," she said. "I have something better for you here."
Mollie turned round in some wonder to see what she meant, and the next minute she turned red and pale with admiring amazement.
"Dolly," she said, rather unnecessarily, "it"s a maroon silk." And she sat down with her hands clasped, and stared at it in the intensity of her wonder.
"Yes," said Dolly, "it is a maroon silk, and you are to wear it to-night. It is Phil"s birthday present to you,--and mine."
The spell was broken at once. The girl got up and made an impulsive rush at her, and, flinging her bare white arms out, caught her in a tempestuous embrace, maroon silk and all, laughing and crying both together.
"Dolly," she said,--"Dolly, it is the grandest thing I ever had in my life, and you are the best two--you and Phil--that ever lived!" And not being as eloquent by nature as she was grateful and affectionate, she poured out the rest of her thanks in kisses and interjections.
Then Dolly, extricating herself, proceeded to add the final touches to the unfinished toilet, and in a very few minutes Miss Mollie stood before the gla.s.s regarding herself in such ecstatic content as she had perhaps never before experienced.
"Who is going to be here, Dolly?" she asked, after taking her first survey.
"Who?" said Dolly. "Well, I scarcely know. Only one or two of Phil"s friends and Ralph Gowan."
Mollie gave a little start, and then blushed in the most pathetically helpless way.
"Ah!" she said, and looked at her reflection in the gla.s.s again, as if she did not exactly know what else to do.
A swift shadow of surprise showed itself in Dolly"s eyes, and died out almost at the same moment.
"Are you ready?" she said, briefly. "If you are, we will go down-stairs."
There was a simultaneous cry of admiration from them all when the two entered the parlor below, and Miss Mollie appeared attired in all her glory.
"Here she is!" exclaimed "Toinette and Aimee, together.
"Just the right shade," was Phil"s immediate comment. "Catches the lights and throws out her coloring so finely. Turn round, Mollie."
And Mollie turned round obediently, a trifle abashed by her own gorgeousness, and looking all the lovelier for her momentary abas.e.m.e.nt.
Griffith was delighted. He went to her and kissed her, and praised her with the enthusiastic frankness which characterized all his proceedings with regard to the different members of the family of his betrothed. He was as proud of the girl"s beauty as if she were a sister of his own.
Then the object of their mutual admiration knelt down upon the hearth-rug, before Tod, who, attired in ephemeral splendor, had stopped in his tour across the room to stare up with bright baby wonder at the novelty of warm, rich color which had caught his fancy.
"I must kiss Tod," she said; no ceremony was ever considered complete, and no occasion perfect, unless Tod had been kissed, and so taken into the general confidence. "Tod, come and be kissed."
But, being a young gentleman of by no means effusive nature, Tod preferred to remain stationary, holding to the toe of his red shoe and gazing upward with an expression of approbation and indifference commingled, which delighted his feminine admirers beyond expression.
"He knows it is something new," said "Toinette. "See how he looks at it." Whereupon, of course, there was a chorus of delighted acquiescence, and Aunt Dolly must needs go down upon the hearthrug, too.
"Has Aunt Mollie got a grand new dress on, Beauty?" she said, glowing with such pretty, womanly adoration of this atom of all-ruling baby-dom, as made her seem the very cream and essence of lovableness and sweet nonsense. And then, Master Tod, still remaining unmoved by adulation, and still regarding his small circle of tender sycophants with round, liquid, baby eyes serene, and dewy red lips apart, was so effective in this one of his many entrancing moods, that he was no longer to be resisted, and so was caught up and embraced with ecstasy.
"He notices everything," cries Aunt Dolly; "and I "m sure he understands every word he hears. He is _so_ different from other babies."
Different! Of course he was different. There was not one of them but indignantly scouted at the idea of there ever having before existed such a combination of infantile gifts and graces. The most obtuse of people could not fail to acknowledge his vast superiority, in spite of their obtuseness.
"But," remarked Aimee, with discretion, "you had better stand up, Mollie, or you will crush your front breadths."
Mollie, with a saving recollection of front breadths, arose, and as it chanced just in time to turn toward the door as Ralph Gowan came in.
He was looking his best to-night,--that enviable, thorough-bred best, which was the natural result of culture, money, and ease; and Dolly, catching sight of Mollie"s guileless blushes, deplored, while she did not wonder at them, understanding her as she did. It was just like the child to blush, feeling herself the centre of observation, but she could not help wis.h.i.+ng that her blush had not been quite so quick and sensitive.
But if she had flushed when he entered, she flushed far more when he came to speak to her. He held in his hand a bouquet of flowers,--white camellia buds and bloom, and dark, shadowy green; a whim of his own, he said.