But Lily kept tight hold of her idea and her money, and the last of January, with Chris' help, she brought it about. They took the bedstead out of the back parlor and changed the furniture around. And though her mother called it foolishness, she baked some tiny biscuits and made a batch of crullers and boiled a ham. Lily bought fancy cakes, mottoes, candies, and nuts, and a few oranges which were very expensive.
The Underhill boys were invited, of course. Benny said "he didn't believe he would go. He shouldn't know what to do at a party."
"Why, follow your nose," laughed Jim. "Do just as the rest do. Don't be a gump!"
"And I hate to be fooling round girls."
"You don't seem to mind Dele Whitney. You're just cracked about her."
I don't know how the boys of that day managed without the useful and pithy word "mashed."
"It's no such thing, Jim Underhill! She's always down-stairs with her mother. I go in to see Mr. Theodore;" yet Ben's face was scarlet.
"You know you like her," teasingly.
"I do like her. And it's awful mean not to ask her when she's in the same crowd and lives on the block. But she doesn't care. She wouldn't go."
"Sour grapes." Jim made a derisive face.