When these women, in their “best dresses,” eloquent of the home use of paper patterns, secure, most of them, in being silk, decorated with a fichu of machine-made lace, came up to greet the Garden girls and be presented to the princess who looked scarcely older than they, and yet was introduced to them as “my mother,” their faces were a study. The struggle between diffidence, pride, and amazement was so easily read that Mrs. Garden grew younger every instant, finding herself once more taking part in a play, and the rôle assigned to her far from easy.
But Florimel, with her overflowing fun, Mary, with her sweetness and tact, beloved as she was by the entire community, high and low, threw themselves into the task of entertaining, and were seconded by some of their girl friends and some older ones, and most of all by Win, who knew precisely how to set everybody at ease and to make them forget themselves in a laugh. Jane never could be at her best in a crowd, so she stayed at her post beside her mother, leaving the entertaining to the others.
The people whom Mrs. Garden had known when she had lived her brief married life in Vineclad came later than the others and instantly Mrs. Garden renewed her slight acquaintance with them, chatting and laughing so prettily that they were enchanted with her. Jane, close at her elbow, made mental notes of how to be a social success.
The refreshments were delicious, the young waitresses served them deftly, Anne and Abbie directing them, and to their boundless relief, the Garden girls saw that all their guests were, at last, having a thoroughly good time. Win and Mark commanded a selected force of young men, or big boys, as one liked better to regard them, and lighted the lanterns when the last radiance of the beautiful June afterglow faded away. Ray by ray the myriad little lights began to gleam over the garden, made more vast, and transformed into mystery, by the deep shadows waving between these stationary fireflies, swinging with their particoloured shapes in all directions. The guests knew that they were expected to go, but still lingered, entranced by the beauty of the scene which the sunset had made lovely beyond words, but which the lanterns now, beneath the stars, revealed in a new and more fascinating beauty.