"Oh, but I am not asked."
"You would be if Mrs. Bobs knew you had come back. I'll 'phone over and tell her," and before Mary Lee could say a word Nan had flown to the telephone. She came back in a few minutes. "Mrs. Bobs is delighted," she reported. "She wants you to meet Charlotte. I know Charlotte will like you for you are just the proper kind to suit her. I am such a fly-away, I am afraid, and she doesn't understand me, when I talk up in the clouds, any more than you do." She hurried herself into a proper frock and rebraided her hair with hasty fingers. "Button my middle button, please, Mary Lee," she said. "Oh, but it is good to have you back. I don't like half of four Corners; it makes us seem on the bias. There, I am ready. Come along."
They started forth, taking the back way, which was nearer, passing the tall geranium which grew to the kitchen roof, the orange trees and the grape-vine trellis, and were soon out on the street. "I shall miss it all," remarked Nan. "We shall be going pretty soon, Mary Lee. Aren't you sorry?"
"For some reasons I am, but for others I am not. I like to see new things and new places."
"So do I, but I get attached to the old ones. I think there is something very catty about me, for I cling to my old haunts."
"You are more kittenish, I should say," returned Mary Lee slyly.
Nan laughed, and did not resent the charge.
Charlotte met them rather stiffly but thawed out under Nan's graciousness, and her frank avowal that she had been in the wrong the day before. It is quite true that Charlotte would not have acted as Nan did, but it is equally true that she would never have been willing to apologize so readily for any misdeed of her own.
"I want you and Mary Lee to know each other," Nan told her. "You are just of a piece, you two. I am going to speak to Mrs. Bobs and leave you to get acquainted." Charlotte looked after her as she danced off. She would have given anything to possess such an easy manner, to have been so unconsciously gracious and affable as Nan. She began her conversation in a little studied way which contrasted strangely with Nan's ready flow of speech, and as Mary Lee was herself dignified, they had not progressed very far when they were summoned to supper. It was then that Nan's high spirits again saved the situation, for having once passed the Rubicon, she gave herself no further concern about her former attitude toward Charlotte, but was so funny when she described the procession home from the Fairy Dell that Charlotte laughed in spite of herself, and all at once her own behavior on that occasion seemed silly and unnecessarily stiff. Mary Lee she might like and would probably always easily get along with, but to Nan she would continue to give a warmer affection from the very fact that she was the opposite of herself.
Mr. Roberts insisted upon seeing the girls home, although Carter appeared on the scene, saying he had been sent as an escort. Mr. Roberts was rather a quiet, grave man, but Nan never failed to unloosen his tongue and his face always brightened when she came around.