Elinor laughed.

She was somewhat used to Arethusa's impulsiveness by this time, so this did not seem such a very surprising thing for her to do.

"And, Mother," Arethusa's hissing whisper grew yet more tragic, "I brought Helen Louise and Peter home with me too, they were with her when I met her!"

"Peter and Helen Louise!! Who on earth are they?"

Elinor could not help but think that this last _was_ going a bit far; for adding three to a carefully arranged luncheon for ten would be somewhat of a strain.

"Her children!" Arethusa was wildly penitent. Her eyes began filling with her ever-ready tears. "Oh, Mother, I was just so glad to see her!

I really didn't mean to do anything to mess up your party! I was just so glad to see her! She was so awfully nice to me that day!"

"Don't cry, Arethusa," said Elinor absently, "don't cry, please! It isn't worth tears. We'll fix it somehow."

Yet the situation was a bit peculiar, without a doubt. The Cherry family could not be sent home, though at the same time, Elinor had a vision of some of those worthy ladies she had invited to her luncheon should the Cherry children join the Party. Just what had best be done....

Arethusa had a gleam first.

"Could Mrs. Cherry," she suggested timidly, "could Mrs. Cherry come to your Party and let me eat with Helen Louise and Peter in the breakfast room? Would it make very much difference?" And this was the n.o.blest piece of self-sacrifice on Arethusa's part which any human being has ever performed, for above all else on earth, save the Wonderful Mr.

Bennet, she loved a Party. "Would it make very much difference if I didn't come?"

Elinor considered that there were possibilities in this Idea of such real worth that it almost atoned for the lapse which had made it necessary of existence. She could tell better, however, after seeing Mrs. Cherry whether it could be carried out in its entirety or modified or extended.

So she and Arethusa proceeded to the library.

Peter had somewhat recovered himself during the moments of Arethusa's absence and was now engaged in climbing first into one big chair and then another, and bounding out. It was a charming pastime, but one in which Helen Louise had refused to join. She still sat just as at first, like a small graven image, with stiff little flaxen plaits sticking out from each side of her head, and staring straight before her, with unblinking pale blue eyes, at the log fire. Her small hands were clasped between her rigid little knees, and her feet, owing to the fact that she was small and the davenport was large, were far from the floor and extended at direct right angles from her body. She did not even move at the entrance of Arethusa with Elinor.

Mrs. Cherry, like her son, was rapidly coming to herself after that encounter with the magnificent George. She was reclining now, at ease, and her eyes were roving busily about, and she made little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns under her breath with each new object she spied.

Elinor was exceedingly gracious when Arethusa introduced her to the unexpected guest, although she hardly acknowledged the meeting with the unadulterated cordiality as the other party to it, for Mrs. Cherry had been born cordial. But no one, least of all Mrs. Cherry herself, would have gathered from Elinor's manner that plans for a formal luncheon had been a trifle upset. She explained that she was having a few friends of her own to lunch and that she believed that it might be pleasanter for the children to have theirs separately. Grown folks and their conversation were very tiring to children. Mrs. Cherry agreed with all of this.

But Elinor also was of the opinion that the Cherry family had best lunch en ma.s.se, with Arethusa, and so adroitly did she manage this part of the affair that Mrs. Cherry ever afterwards firmly believed it was she, herself, who had suggested that she join Helen Louise and Peter and the younger hostess, rather than Elinor's older guests.

The division of luncheon guests which Arethusa headed was safely garnered in the breakfast room with only a narrow margin of time to spare before Elinor's division arrived.

Mrs. Cherry was treated there to a collation that so long as she lived remained distinctive, with a white-capped maid in a black dress and much befrilled ap.r.o.n to serve it in courses just as the other luncheon was served. She ate from egg-sh.e.l.l china, and drank from gla.s.ses, so crystal clear and thin, that they long stood to Mrs. Cherry as a synonym for perfection.

"It's as purty as them gla.s.ses of Mis' Worth'ton's," was her final word of praise.

And Helen Louise and Peter ate and ate and ate, until their hostess began to be anxious and wondered where they were putting it all.

Then George smuggled in the Victrola, and behind carefully closed doors Arethusa gave a Concert which endeared her to a music-loving Helen Louise forever, as the brightest memory of her life. Clay took them home in the automobile, with a little ride through the Park beforehand, so that the Cherrys' cup of bliss was almost too full. Arethusa went with them, but when she had come back, it was much too late to join that Real Party of Elinor's.

Miss Eliza would not have considered Elinor's method of dealing with Arethusa any sort of punishment for such a performance as she had been guilty of this day, but Elinor knew only too well what a real punishment it was.

It was a most subdued Arethusa who came down to the dinner-table that evening, although very eager to know all the details of the Affair she had missed. Even Helen Louise and Peter and their mother, charming as they were, had not proven any sort of subst.i.tutes for the Luncheon with Elinor's friends to which Arethusa had looked forward so long.

"Did Miss Grant come?" she asked.

She was somewhat of a worshipper at Miss Grant's shrine these days (Miss Grant was a Real, Live Author whose books Arethusa had read) and it had been planned that she would sit next to her.

"Yes."

It was a disappointing answer, for Arethusa had vaguely hoped that for some reason she had stayed away.

"Yes," volunteered Ross, "your Celebrity was here, and in fine form. I heard her delightful voice as I came in, myself. It has a penetrating quality that probably arises from being so much in the Public Eye."

Arethusa squirmed, unhappily.

"Did she ask where I was?" hopefully.

"No, dear," very gently from Elinor, "I don't suppose she thought for a moment that you were to be there. You know I was just letting you come with all those older women, Arethusa, because I was so anxious for you to really know some of my friends."

"You certainly got yourself in Dutch, my daughter," said Ross, "for starting up that rival entertainment. And it's a mighty good thing, I expect, that the adulated Miss Drusilla Grant did not know you felt that way about her coming to dine. She would have been deeply offended, I know. She's not used to slights. I doubt very much if she'd ever let you pick up her handkerchief after such an affront."

"Ross!" exclaimed Elinor, for he had made Arethusa's punishment almost too complete.

Her downcast head and the trembling of her hands indicated a struggle with distress, and he reached across the table and patted her arm kindly. "Cheer up, child," he said, laughing, "she doesn't know a thing about it, and n.o.body's going to be mean enough to tell her. We just won't let it happen again."

Arethusa looked up, her eyes bright with tears, and the fervency of her promise that she would think like everything first, hereafter, made Elinor hope that the Recording Angel gives credit for Real Sincerity of Intention.

Christmas came in snowy and bl.u.s.tery.

It was an ideal Christmas Day, and just such a one as Arethusa had never spent before; with a Christmas Tree in the morning, and a table full of guests in the middle of the day, callers all afternoon long, and presents galore, in the shape of boxes of candy and flowers and many other equally useful articles that were showered upon her by admiring friends.

Mr. Bennet sent another box of American Beauties which Arethusa carried upstairs to put in her own room, so that she could see them the very first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, and she meant to make them last as long as clipped stems and fresh water could make them. His Gift....

It was a Wonderful, Wonderful Day, one that was never to be forgotten.

There was a dance that night out at the Country Club, and Arethusa had a new dress for it especially. She had a very guilty feeling sometimes when she thought of Miss Eliza and the rows of new garments that hung in the closet of the green and white room. It was a gloriously romping, Christmasy dance, for the college boys and girls, and Arethusa wished very much that Timothy could have been in attendance; and this in spite of the fact that she had Mr. Bennet. But it was such an Occasion as Timothy would have loved, with formality thrown to the four winds and everybody just bent on having as much fun as was possible; even the men's evening clothes seemed to partake of the festival feeling and appeared to be worn with a rakish air quite unlike their customary somber wearing. The girls' dresses, of course, all fluttered with the spirit of the season; and voices were gay, and eyes were bright.

Arethusa had never been conscious of the lack of Timothy at any other dance, because they had all been, every one, so unlike anything that she could a.s.sociate with him. But this dance on Christmas night was so different, so suitable for Timothy, that she did wish he could have been there.

Probably it helped her a little in this wish that he had sent her, all the way from Miss Asenath's Woods, a great box of mistletoe and holly (she and Timothy had gathered mistletoe and holly there together every Christmas since she could remember) and she had had a little homesick moment when she opened it; it brought the Farm, with all its dear inmates, so plainly before her. Christmas was very quiet there; it seemed more like a real Holy Day, and less like a Holiday, than it did in town.

Arethusa had sent Timothy a watch fob for Christmas, one with his fraternity emblem on it which she knew that he had long ardently desired; and books which she had thought would surely appeal to his taste in reading; and handkerchiefs, beautiful big squares of linen, shakily marked in his initials with her own fair fingers.

The box she had sent to the Farm itself made Miss Eliza close her lips grimly and think unutterable things about the deadly wickedness of extravagance. She uttered some things before she had closed her lips, quite forcibly, but as Arethusa was not present, it could not do much good. Arethusa did not forget a single creature at the Farm. Beginning with Miss Asenath, every living thing had a gift. Miss Johnson had a collar of wonderfully shiny, bra.s.sy beauty; old Baldy, the horse, had a new blanket; and there was even a catnip ball for the grey cat that slept in front of Mandy's stove. There were so many cats at the Farm that it was quite impossible to remember them all, but Arethusa reasoned that they would all enjoy a catnip ball.

Never, in all of the history of the season, did any one ever have such a Christmas Glow as this of Arethusa's. And it was extended most lavishly to everyone she met through these days, whether she knew them or not, old and young, rich or poor, from smiling lips and starry eyes.

"A Real Spirit of Christmas," Ross called her, "red hair and all!"

But after Christmas was over, there was no actual subsiding of Excitement. For on New Year's Day Elinor was giving Arethusa a Party, her First Party of her Very Own; and it was to be the most Wonderful Party that had ever been given.

And Timothy had been invited. His was the very first invitation sent.