I remain, my dear sir,
Yours gratefully,
Elizabeth.
Dick had a good laugh over the letter and put it away among those he treasured. “It will amuse her some day when she has grown up,” he told himself.
Miss Jewett was trying to help Elizabeth in her use of words but there had not been time as yet to show much result from her teaching. On the day that school closed for the holidays Bess announced importantly that she was going to give a party on New Year’s night. She had not returned to her allegiance but showed both Betsy and Elizabeth that she vastly preferred Corinne to either of them. They, therefore, wondered if an invitation to this festivity would be given them.
“It would be dreadful to be left out,” declared Elizabeth as she and Betsy were talking it over. “It would be almost a disgrace, for she will invite nearly everybody in the school, except the very little children, of course.”
“She won’t have a very big party if she is going to invite only those who are friends with Corinne,” returned Betsy caustically. “We’ve known her all our lives and our families are friends and all that.”
“I suppose it will be as her mother and grandmother say, anyhow,”—Elizabeth took some comfort in this.
“And I’d like to see Mrs. Lynde offend my aunt Emily; she wouldn’t do it, for they are very intimate friends. I shall tell her about the party right away and of course she will expect that I am to go.”
So much for Betsy’s prospects. Elizabeth was not so sure of her own. Bess had painted her plans in vivid colors, her ambition being to give such an affair as should be equal to those described by Corinne. Musicians discoursing sweet strains of music behind a screen of palms, a supper ordered from a caterer in the city, party dresses made to order for the occasion, sounded very grand to little girls used only to very simple affairs. “I suppose If I do go,” said Elizabeth, “I couldn’t have a real party dress; I would just have to wear my best white.”
“I suppose I should, too. Aunt Emily doesn’t approve of little girls like us having real dressy clothes.”
“I heard Bess say that her dress was to be blue chiffon over blue silk with tiny pink rosebuds on it. Won’t it be beautiful?”