“Bess, you will have to hire a hall,” Grace rather timidly interposed. “How can we ever entertain all those people? They’ll scare the life out of me. Just imagine going up to Dr. Beulah and saying, ‘We are going to have a party, will you come to it?’ What if she said, ‘No!’ Then what would the person who had asked her say? Why, it gives me gooseflesh just to think about it.”
“Never you mind, little Gracie, you won’t have to do the asking,” Laura reassured her, “We’ll let either Bess or Rhoda do that.”
“That’s an idea!” Amelia approved. “Rhoda already has a job. Bess, you make up a list of people you think we ought to invite and then you invite them. It seems to me, though, if you are going to do it in a grand manner, you really ought to write out the invitations, and that you will have to invite Mrs. Cupp.”
The girls groaned.
“That’s right.” Amelia stuck to her point.
For a second Bess looked crestfallen, almost as though she had rather give up the party than have grim looking Mrs. Cupp present watching over it.
Laura, however, cheered her up. “Never mind, Bess,” she consoled, “she’s really not so bad, you know, after you have thawed her out with something warm to drink and given her something good to eat. Really, she can be quite human when she wants to be.”
“At any rate, we don’t have to think about Linda Riggs this time,” Bess said in an effort to find one patch of brightness in the situation. “My, doesn’t it seem good not to have her here this term!”
“Better than anything that has happened to us for a long time,” Grace agreed. “But let’s not crow too loud about it, you never know when she will turn up. Then you’ll invite Mrs. Cupp, too?” she asked Bess, looking as though she was very glad she didn’t have to do it.
“I suppose so,” Bess agreed half heartedly. “How many will we invite?”