"You think an evening dinner would be--distinngwy?"

"Oh, yes--the way we've planned it out!" affirmed Tess. She, less diffident than Missy, was less reserved in her disclosures. She went on eagerly: "We've got it all planned out. Five courses: oyster c.o.c.ktails; Waldorf salad; veal loaf, Saratoga chips, devilled eggs, dill pickles, mixed pickles, chow-chow and peach pickles: heavenly hash; and ice-cream with three kinds of cake. And small cups of demita.s.se, of course."

"Three kinds of cake?"

"Well," explained Tess, "you see Beula and Beth and Kitty all want cake for their share--they say their mothers won't be bothered with anything else. We're dividing the menu up between us, you know."

"I see. And what have you allotted to Missy?"

Missy herself found courage to answer this question; Mother's grave inquiries were bringing her intense relief.

"I thought maybe I could furnish the heavenly hash, Mother."

"Heavenly hash?" Mother looked perplexed. "What's that?"

"I don't know," admitted Missy. "But I liked the name--it's so alluring.

Beulah suggested it--I guess she knows the recipe."

"I think it's all kinds of fruit chopped together," volunteered Tess.

"But aren't you having a great deal of fruit--and pickles?" suggested Mrs. Merriam mildly.

"Oh, well," explained Tess, rather grandly, "at a swell function you don't have to have many substantial viands, you know."

"Oh, I nearly forgot--this is to be a swell function."

"Yes, the real thing," said Tess proudly. "Potted palms and hand-painted place-cards and orchestra music and candle shades and everything!"

"Candle shades?--won't it be daylight at six o'clock?"

"Well, then, we'll pull down the window shades," said Tess, undisturbed.

"Candle-light 'll add--"

Aunt Nettie, who couldn't keep still any longer, cut in:

"Will you tell me where you're going to get an orchestra?"

"Oh," said Tess, with an air of patience, "we're going to fix the date on a band-practice night. I guess they'd be willing to practice on your porch if we gave them some ice-cream and cake."

"My word!" gasped Aunt Nettie.

"Music always adds so much e'clat to an affair," pursued Tess, unruffled.

"The band practicing 'll add a-clatter, all right," commented Aunt Nettie, adding a syllable to Tess's triumphant word.

Missy, visioning the seductive scene of Tess's description, did not notice her aunt's sarcasm.

"If only we had a butler!" she murmured dreamily.

Aunt Nettie made as if to speak again, but caught an almost imperceptible signal from her sister.

"Surely, Mary," she began, "you don't mean to say you're--"

Another almost imperceptible gesture.

"Remember, Nettie, that when there's poison in the system, it is best to let it out as quickly as possible."

What on earth was Mother talking about?

But Missy was too thrilled by the leniency of her mother's att.i.tude to linger on any side-question--anyway, grown-ups were always making incomprehensible remarks. She came back swiftly to the important issue.

"And may we really have the party here, Mother?"

Mother smiled at her, a rather funny kind of smile.

"I guess so--the rest of us may as well have the benefit."

What did Mother mean?...

But oh, rapture!

Tess and Missy wrote the invitations themselves and decided to deliver them in person, and Missy had no more prevision of all that decision meant than Juliet had when her mother concluded she would give the ball that Romeo b.u.t.ted in on.

Tess said they must do it with empress.e.m.e.nt, meaning she would furnish an equipage for them to make their rounds in. Her father was a doctor, and had turned the old Smith place into a sanitarium; and, to use the Cherryvale word, he had several "rigs." However, when the eventful day for delivery arrived, Tess discovered that her father had disappeared with the buggy while her mother had "ordered out" the surrey to take some ladies to a meeting of the Missionary Society.

That left only an anomalous vehicle, built somewhat on the lines of a victoria, in which Tim, "the coachman" (in Cherryvale argot known as "the hired man"), was wont to take convalescent patients for an airing.

Tess realized the possible lack of dignity attendant upon having to sit in the driver's elevated seat; but she had no choice, and consoled herself by terming it "the box."

A more serious difficulty presented itself in the matter of suitable steeds. One would have preferred a tandem of bright bays or, failing these, spirited ponies chafing at the bit and impatiently tossing their long, waving manes. But one could hardly call old Ben a steed at all, and he proved the only animal available that afternoon. Ben suffered from a disability of his right rear leg which caused him to raise his right haunch spasmodically when moving. The effect was rhythmic but grotesque, much as if Ben thought he was turkey-trotting. Otherwise, too, Ben was unlovely. His feet were by no means dainty, his coat was a dirty looking dappled-white, and his mane so attenuated it needed a toupee. As if appreciating his defects, Ben wore an apologetic, almost timid, expression of countenance, which greatly belied his true stubbornness of character.

Not yet aware of the turn-out they must put up with, about two o'clock that afternoon Missy set out for Tess's house. She departed un.o.btrusively by the back door and side gate. The reason for this almost surrept.i.tious leave-taking was in the package she carried under her arm.

It held her mother's best black silk skirt, which boasted a "sweep"; a white waist of Aunt Nettie's; a piece of Chantilly lace which had once been draped on mother's skirt but was destined, to-day, to become a "mantilla"; and a magnificent "willow plume" snipped from Aunt Nettie's Sunday hat. This plume, when tacked to Missy's broad leghorn, was intended to be figuratively as well as literally the crowning feature of her costume.

Tess, too, had made the most of her mother's absence at the Missionary Society. Unfortunately Mrs. O'Neill had worn her black silk skirt, but her blue dimity likewise boasted a "sweep." A bouquet of artificial poppies (plucked from a hat of "the mater's") added a touch of colour to Tess's corsage. And she, also, had acquired a "willow plume."

Of course it was Tess who had thought to provide burnt matches and an extra poppy--artificial. The purpose of the former was to give a "shadowy look" under the eyes; of the latter, moistened, to lend a "rosy flush" to cheek and lip.

Missy was at first averse to these unfamiliar aids to beauty.

"Won't it make your face feel sort of queer--like it needed washing?"

she demurred.

"Don't talk like a bourgeois," said Tess.

Missy applied the wet poppy.

At the barn, "the coachman" was luckily absent, so Tess could harness up her steed without embarra.s.sing questions. At the sight of the steed of the occasion, Missy's spirits for a moment sagged a bit; nor did old Ben present a more impressive appearance when, finally, he began to turkey-trot down Maple Avenue. His right haunch lifted--fell--lifted--fell, in irritating rhythm as his bulky feet clumped heavily on the macadam. Tess had insisted that Missy should occupy the driver's seat with her, though Missy wanted to recline luxuriously behind, perhaps going by home to pick up Poppy--that is, Fifine--to hold warm and perdu in her lap. But practical Tess pointed out that such an act might attract the attention of Mrs. Merriam and bring the adventure to an end. They proceeded down Maple Avenue. It was Tess's intention to turn off at Silver Street, to leave the first carte d'invitation at the home of Mr. Raymond Bonner. These doc.u.ments were proudly scented (and incidentally spotted) from Mrs. O'Neill's cologne bottle.

Young Mr. Bonner resided in one of the handsomest houses in Cherryvale, and was himself the handsomest boy in the crowd. Besides, he had more than once looked at Missy with soft eyes--the girls "teased" Missy about Raymond. It was fitting that Raymond should receive the first billet doux. So, at the corner of Maple and Silver, Tess pulled the rein which should have turned Ben into the shady street which led to Raymond's domicile. Ben moved his head impatiently, and turkey-trotted straight ahead. Tess pulled the rein more vigorously; Ben twitched his head still more like a swear word and, with a more p.r.o.nounced shrug of his haunch, went undivertingly onward.