“Don’t leave me up here alone,” Miss Rindy called after her, “for there is no knowing into what self-abasement I may plunge. If I don’t rend my heart I may rend my garments, so wait for me, and, once having put my hand to the plough, I shall not dare to turn back.”
Ellen waited for her half-way down the stairs, and together they greeted the first arrivals, these happening to be Caro and her parents.
“It’s good you happen to be the first, Sam Rowe,” was Miss Rindy’s greeting to the doctor. “This is my first party, you know, and I’m liable to faint dead away from excitement, I’m in such a flutter.”
“You don’t look much as if you’d faint,” returned the doctor. “I never saw you look so well.”
“Why, Rindy Crump,” Mrs. Rowe had been looking her over, “what have you been doing to yourself? You look ten years younger.”
“Doesn’t she?” the doctor agreed. “You’re almost good-looking, Rindy.”
“Sh! Sh!” warned Miss Rindy. “Here come some more people. I must compose my countenance. If you don’t stop your compliments, I shall have a rush of blood to the head, and then what? Go along, Sam Rowe, and try out your flattery on some one else, Sophy Bennett, for instance.”
The doctor made a wry face but moved on, and soon Miss Rindy was surrounded by her guests.
CHAPTER VII
GETTING OUT OF DIFFICULTIES