It was a quiet party, but one full of suppressed mirth, that wound its way back over the path. The Lakeview Hall girls could scarcely contain themselves until they got in their apartments.
“It was just perfect.” Laura laughed heartily.
“Did you see the way he looked, and the way the donkey looked?” Amelia asked.
“They just stared at one another until I thought that cousin Adair would beat the beast with his cane.”
“I thought of that, too,” Bess said. “But I guess he’s too kind-hearted to do anything like that.”
Bess was right. Adair MacKenzie had never in his life made any attempt to hurt a dumb animal in any way until that morning when he had dug his heels in irritation into the mule’s side. At home, he always had animals about him, a dog that was now well along in years, a stable full of horses, and yes, a mule that he once bought on the street when he saw its master trying to beat it into moving along.
“The crust of that mule,” Laura said slangily. “Did it ever do my heart good to see its stubbornness matched against Mr. MacKenzie’s! I wonder what kind of a character sketch he would make of it, if he had the chance, that is, I mean, if the mule could understand him.”
“Probably, ‘stubborn fool’ and let it go at that,” Nan answered. “Anyway his troubles with that mule will never be forgotten.”
“And ‘stubborn as a mule’, will always mean something to us now,” Nan added. “Now, we’ve got to get ready and get downstairs. Dinner’s going to be ready very shortly.”
So the girls changed their clothes, washed, combed and presented themselves downstairs all clean and neat.