“Are your friends from the Wilderness?” asked Peggy Tibbetts, the oldest girl of the party, as Faith sat down beside her.
“No,” Faith answered slowly. “They are both coming down after supper, and I know you will be surprised when I tell you that they live right in this house.”
Peggy Tibbetts was surprised. She looked almost frightened, and lost no time in whispering this information to the other girls; so that when Faith announced that she would run up-stairs and ask “Annie” and “Mary” to come down there was an anxious silence.
Faith asked Jane to go with her, and in a few moments they returned with the two clumsy “girls.” In the brightly-lit kitchen the dressed-up figures could no longer be mistaken, and the children were greatly pleased and amused by “Annie” and “Mary,” who were established in straight-backed chairs, and urged to share in the supper.
There was so much laughter and merriment in the kitchen that Aunt Prissy looked in for a moment. “Faithie dear, who are the little girls in the corner?” she asked. To Louise and Jane this seemed a triumph indeed, and when Aunt Prissy, entering into the spirit of the affair, insisted upon being introduced to “Annie” and “Mary,” and said she was very glad to see them, the children danced about, greatly pleased with this unexpected fun.
When the clock struck nine the grown people and children were all ready to start for home. Louise was to stay all night with Faith. As the children said their good-byes and stepped out into the snow-trodden path they called back messages to “Annie” and “Mary.” The full moon shone down so brightly that the path could be plainly seen, and in the distance the dark line of the forest, and the heights of Ticonderoga.
“It’s the best time I ever had in all my life,” declared Jane, as she trotted off holding fast to her mother’s hand.
And Faith said the same as she bade Aunt Prissy good-night. “It’s fun to have parties, isn’t it, Aunt Prissy,” she said, “and all the girls are so pleasant.”
“That is what makes the good time, isn’t it?” responded her aunt.
“I hope it won’t storm to-morrow,” Louise said, as the two girls prepared for bed.