CHAPTER XXI

But Timothy wrote that he was sorry, but he could not come.

He thought that Arethusa's letters home had lately been almost too full of a person by the name of Bennet, and torn between a curiosity to observe this person for himself in the flesh, and a disinclination to place himself in a position that should give her the opportunity to express her preference in public, the latter won.

Arethusa stormed and raged, as was quite to be expected.

It was so stupid of him to refuse! He would spoil the whole Party if he did not come! She almost cried with vexation as she read his letter at the breakfast-table.

"He's just got to come, that's all! Nasty thing! And I'll just bet he waited till right now to write so it would be too late for me to write to him again! That would be just like him! He's had that invitation two whole weeks! Oh, I just hate him for acting this way!"

"I shouldn't think you would be so anxious to have a person you hated at your Party," remarked Ross.

"Of course I want Timothy to come," replied Arethusa, with decision.

"More than anyone else except you and Mother."

"More than Mr. Bennet even?" asked her father, wickedly.

No reply of any kind was made to this sally.

But why couldn't Timothy come? Why did he want to be so horrid for? And she expressed herself with many more e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of a like nature, until finally Ross suggested that it might be a wise plan to send Timothy a telegram of urgency.

Arethusa seized with pleasure on this idea.

When she learned that he would receive it this very morning, if it was started immediately, she left the breakfast-table to get her hat and coat, telling George to notify Clay that she wanted the machine right away. She insisted on personal attention to this important affair, refusing to trust the telephone, although Elinor a.s.sured her it would go just as surely. Her own handwriting, said Arethusa, would have far more effect on Timothy than the handwriting of any stranger. She knew very little about telegrams.

So Ross gave her all the details of the sending of one, and told her where it might be done, and Arethusa departed gaily with Clay, who had been called from his breakfast to serve her. She explained to him on the ride down-town how very important it all was, and just how necessary that Timothy receive this message with despatch, so that Clay, being a sensible person, could not help but feel it more vital than his breakfast.

The telegraph operator at the Patterson Hotel where Ross had told her to go, was an obliging youth at all times, and he felt still more obliging when Arethusa's vivid face appeared before him and her eager voice announced that she wanted to send a telegram; and was this the right place?

It was. He informed her further that she could send ten words for fifty cents.

Ten words was a great many; she could say almost twice as much as she wanted to in ten words.

Her first attempt went something on this order....

"Dear Timothy--I will never speak to you again as long as I live if you don't come to my party. You just must come.

"ARETHUSA."

Arethusa read it in triumph. It expressed just what she wanted to express to Timothy. Then she counted the words she had written, and her facial expression changed radically. She leaned over the counter toward the operator.

"Does it have to be ten words?"

"If it's a telegram, Miss, unless you want to pay the charges for the extra words. It might be a day letter," he suggested.

"Is a telegram quicker?"

It was.

Then it must be a telegram.

She counted the words over again, but they remained considerably more than ten.

"But I've got to say all that," she said, aloud, "I've just got to!"

She tried once more, and once more after that. The capacity of ten words for expressing what one wished to say seemed to decrease with each trial to write the telegram. The operator volunteered his professional help, after he had watched her spoil several blanks. He smiled slightly as he read the one she handed him, gratefully accepting his kind offer.

"You've never sent one before, have you, Miss?"

Arethusa propped her elbows on the high counter, and rested her chin on them so she could regard his work. "No, I haven't," and she smiled down at him so charmingly he could almost have franked that telegram through. "But I thought ten words was oceans."

"No, Miss, it isn't very many." He scratched out the "Dear Timothy,"

she had written "You don't generally say that."

"You don't! Why, how do you know who it's for?"

"You have the address and that doesn't cost you anything."

Arethusa stood on tip-toe and leaned far over the counter to see what he was doing. She was as close to him as it was possible for her to get with a large piece of furniture in between them.

"Let's see it?" she asked, breathlessly, when he had finished writing.

It read, in the operator's version:--

"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not.

"ARETHUSA."

Her face clouded. "But I wanted to tell him that I wouldn't speak to him again if he didn't come. I know he won't, unless I do. Let me come around where you are, can't I? And can't you say that, that I won't speak to him?"

The very obliging youth indicated a little gate at one side where she might find a way in, and Arethusa joined him in consultation over the message. Two heads are always better than one.

In its final form, the telegram read:--

"Will never speak to you again if you don't come.

"ARETHUSA"

Which proved to be perfectly satisfactory, and lived up to all the good reputations of telegrams; for it fetched Timothy.

Arethusa met him herself, at the station, when he came the morning of the Party. She was so Glad to see him! She flung both arms around his neck and more than one soft kiss was pressed warmly against his cheek: Timothy all unresisting.

"Oh, Timothy! Timothy!! _Timothy!!!_"