“You can spare yourself the trouble,” replied Caro coolly, “for she leaves to-morrow.”
“O dear!” sighed Florence, and was further chagrined when Frank reported that he, with Claude Fawcett and Julius Safford, had been asked to take supper at Dr. Rowe’s to meet Miss Wickham. In this small town the old-fashioned custom of a midday dinner and a substantial supper was still in vogue.
“Of course Ellen will be there,” said Frank complacently, and again Florence sighed.
There were always jolly times for the young people when they met at Dr. Rowe’s. The doctor himself was a jovial soul, while Mrs. Rowe was sympathetic and motherly, never frowning upon youthful nonsense, and always ready to indulge her only child in dispensing such hospitality as pleased her. Consequently Caro’s invitations were never refused, for, as the boys said, “You are sure of good eats when you go to the Rowes’”; and with boys this counted for much, “greedy creatures as they are,” Caro was wont to remark.
They never hesitated to express their appreciation, however, and declared it was not all loaves and fishes which brought them to the house. “You are such a good sport, Caro,” Clyde told her, “and you don’t treat us like company. We don’t have to just sit on chairs and pay compliments; you don’t even mind a little rough-house as long as we don’t break up the furniture, and you don’t get mad if we jolly you, so that’s why we always like to come.”
Mabel was told all this when at first she hesitated at going to the house of utter strangers. “I’m here for such a short time,” she said, “and I don’t know them at all. Should I be so informal?”
Ellen laughed. “I think there spoke your grandmother. Don’t you like being informal? I thought you did. Caro is a dear, a sort of primrose-on-the-river’s-brim person, but overflowing with good-will. The whole family are my best friends, excepting dear Jeremy Todd, of course, and because of that you are their friend, too. The boys are just nice, everyday boys. Frank tries to be grown up sometimes, but the others are nothing but playfellows, and we all have mighty good times together.”
“It all sounds very refreshing, so if you think it will be all right I’ll be glad to go,” Mabel decided.
Therefore Caro had her triumph, and no one could say that it was a disappointing evening. Caro charged each boy separately that he was not to “sit up and pay compliments,” but must make it as jolly as possible. “Please don’t be stiff,” she begged. “Tell funny stories, and if it helps to break the ice you may jolly me all you choose.” And the boys obeyed her to the letter, so that Mabel said she had never laughed so much in all her life, and that she wouldn’t have missed that supper for the world.
“I am so tired of bridge parties and the grown-up doings that Gran loves to force me into. She is a perfect dear, and adores me, but she is, oh, so conventional and I get so tired of p’s and q’s; that is why I long to get away to more simplicity this summer.”