The day went rushing past. Enticing odours arose from the kitchen. The grocery wagon came, and came again. The girls went home. A sketchy lunch was eaten off the kitchen table, and father stayed down town. The girls reappeared. They overran the kitchen, peeling oranges and pineapples and bananas for “heavenly hash.” Marguerite grew cross. The Baby, who missed his nap, grew cross. And Missy, for some reason, grew sort of cross, too; she resented the other girls' unrestrainable hilarity. They wouldn't be so hilarious if it were their own households they were setting topsy-turvy; if they had sixteen “place-cards” yet to finish. In England, the hostess's entertainments went more smoothly. Things were better arranged there.
Gradually the girls drifted home to dress; the house grew quiet. Missy's head was aching. Flushed and paint-daubed, she bent over the “place-cards.”
“Hadn't you better be getting dressed, dear?--it's half-past five.”
Half-past five! Heavens! Missy bent more feverishly over the “place-cards”; there were still two left to colour.
“I'll lay out your dotted Swiss for you,” offered mother kindly.
At this mention of her “best dress,” Missy found time for a pang of vain desire. She wished she had a more befitting dinner gown. A black velvet, perhaps; a “picture dress” with rare old lace, and no other adornment save diamonds in her hair and ears and round her throat and wrists.
But, then, velvet might be too hot for August. She visioned herself in an airy creation of batiste--very simple, but the colour combination a ravishing mingling of palest pink and baby-blue, with ribbons fluttering; delicately tinted long gloves; delicately tinted slippers and silken stockings on her slender, high-arched feet; a few glittering rings on her restless fingers; one blush-pink rose in her hair which, simply arranged, suffered two or three stray rippling locks to wander wantonly across her forehead.
“Missy! It's ten minutes to six! And you haven't even combed your hair!” It was mother at the door again.
The first guest arrived before Missy had got her hair “smoothed up”--no time, tonight, to try any rippling, wanton effects. She could hear the swelling sound of voices and laughter in the distance--oh, dreadful! Her fingers became all thumbs as she sought to get into the dotted swiss, upside down.