The course of action once settled upon, Mary fell to work with her usual energy. While the girls were taking their daily siesta, she dressed early and went down into the library. If it had not been for the fear of missing something, she would have spent much of her time in that attractive room. Books looked down so invitingly from the many shelves. All the June magazines lay on the library table, their pages still uncut. Everybody had been too busy to look at them. She hesitated a moment over the tempting array, but remembering her purpose, grimly passed them by and opened the big dictionary.
Rob found her still poring over it, pencil and paper in hand, when he looked into the room an hour later.
"What's up now?" he asked.
She evaded his question at first, but, afraid that he would tease her before the girls about her thirst for knowledge and her study of the dictionary, and that that might lead to the thwarting of her plans, she suddenly decided to take him into her confidence.
"Well," she began, solemnly, "you know mostly I loathe dolls. Sometimes I do dress Hazel Lee's for her, but I don't like to play with them regularly any more as I used to,—talk for them and all that. But Girlie Dinsmore was here this morning, and I had to do it because she is company. She had such a good time that she said she was coming over here every single morning while I'm here. I just can't have my lovely visit spoiled that way. The bride is coming day after to-morrow, and she'll be opening her presents and showing her trousseau to the girls, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. So I've made up my mind I'll be just as polite as possible, but I'll do as the stork did in the fable; make my entertainment so deep she won't enjoy it. I'm hunting up the longest words I can find and learning their definitions, so that I can use them properly."
Rob, looking over her shoulder, laughed to see the list she had chosen:
| "Indefatigability, |
| Juxtaposition, |
| Loquaciousness, |
| Pabulum, |
| Peregrinate, |
| Longevous." |
"You see," explained Mary, "sometimes there is a quotation after the word from some author, so I've copied a lot of them to use, instead of making up sentences myself. Here's one from Shakespeare about alacrity. And here's one from Arbuthnot, whoever he was, that will make her stare."
She traced the sentence with her forefinger, for Rob's glance to follow: "Instances of longevity are chiefly among the abstemious."
"Girlie won't have any more idea of what I'm talking about than a jay-bird."