"Marcia has been very kind, and has let me drive Dolly a little. I should not be afraid, and it would be so delightful."
"You quite deserve it, I have to leave you so much to entertain yourselves. Now rest a little and I will walk back with you."
The professor comes out. "They will stay for lunch, good Denise," he announces, quite peremptorily. "Good morning, Mrs. Grandon; good morning, little one! We have been sadly dissipated fellows, going around on what you call 'larks,' and you ought to scold us both."
"I don't know why!" she rejoins, with a bright smile. She is suddenly very happy; it tingles along every nerve.
"What a pretty—hood, do you call it?" says Grandon, rather awkwardly, trying to unfasten Violet's wrap.
"And the little one is a picture!" adds the professor, glancing from one to the other.
"Mamma made mine," cries Cecil. "She had one when she was a little girl, and her papa brought it from Paris."
Grandon laughs. They go to look at the designs, and Violet makes business-like little comments that surprise them both. She is so eager to have the book done, to see it in proper shape with her own eyes. "I shall really feel famous," she declares, with a pretty air of consequence, archly assumed.
The lunch is delightful, and Violet confesses that yesterday they all entered with felonious intent, and did eat and drink, and surreptitiously waste and destroy.
"You didn't get Gertrude here?" asks Floyd. "What magic did you use?"