Despite their disappointment, the day proved a pleasant one, for Mrs. Gorham brought with her a breath from the outside world for which they longed. She entertained them with stories of her travels, of her daughter's experiences at boarding-school and her son Tom's escapades at college. She praised Claribel's embroidery and Wilma's little water-colour sketches, and she left without discovering all the ravages time had wrought in beautiful old Marchmont. For they sat out on the porch nearly all day, and the rose mantle of the Gloire de Dijon hid a multitude of sins of omission in the way of neglected repairs.
"SHE ENTERTAINED THEM WITH STORIES OF HER TRAVELS"[ToList]
Several days later, when Mrs. Gorham wrote to Agnes, thanking her for the pleasure the visit had given her, she added: "I have talked so much about Marchmont since my return, of its roses, of its hospitality and its charming girls, that Tom declares he intends to follow my example and drop by some day for a call. He may carry out his threat this summer, as a little business matter may call him to that part of the State. I have assured him your latch-string will be out to him as it was to me, for old time's sake. I shall be very glad to have him know the daughters of my old friend."
"Oh," cried Wilma, as Agnes read the letter aloud, "if he is half as interesting as his mother's tales of him, he must be a real Prince Charming. But, oh, girls, don't you hope he'll wait until 'Carrington' is out? It would be dreadfully embarrassing if, after his mother's account of our hospitality, we could give him only scraps. There can't always be a picnic basket to fall back on."
The prospective guest was often discussed during the summer that followed; and, although he never came, Wilma was always alarming the family, when affairs were especially unpropitious, by the query, "What if he should suddenly drop in upon us now?"
"There's no use of your crying 'wolf' any longer," said Claribel, impatiently, one rainy morning, near the middle of September. "He's surely gone back to college by this time. What if a letter did come to sister this morning, addressed in a strange handwriting? It is from some new man on the Sentinel, probably."
"At any rate," insisted Wilma, "I wish it had come before sister went to town, and if it should be from Mrs. Gorham's son, of all the unlucky days in creation, he couldn't have chosen a worse time to arrive. The situation is absolutely hopeless."
The two girls were in the attic, arrayed in their oldest wrappers. Claribel, with her curly hair carefully tied up in a towel, was ripping open an old feather bolster to convert it into sofa pillows. Wilma, dragging out dusty boxes from under the eaves, was looking through them for some remnants of linen for covers.