"It's the loveliest house where the party'll be," she said. "'Tain't the artist's own. It's some relation's that's lent it for the summer while they're away at the seashore. I bin there. It's in the Fifties, just off Fift' Av'noo. Tonight it'll be cool as snow, and everything'll be iced for supper. Iced consummay, chicken salad cold as the refrigerator, iced champagne cup flowin' like water; ice-cream and strawb'ries, the big, sweet, red ones from up north, where they keep on growin' all summer, and lilies and roses from the country to give away to us when we go home."
Win forgot the question that had not been answered. She seemed to see those strawberries and to smell the sweetness of roses and lilies in a house "as cool as snow."
"Heavenly!" she sighed. "I didn't remember there were such things in the world!"
"Well, come with me to-night and remind yourself," coaxed Miss Leavitt. "You needn't be afraid, because I
said it was artists, to butt into some rowdy crowd. They'll be as quiet and refined as mice. They're more your kind than mine, I guess."
"But who invites me?" Win made another bid for information.
"My artist friend said I could bring any one I wanted to bring, and I want to bring you. I don't just know who all'll be there, but I guess not many, and it's a real swell house to see. You always refuse everything I ask you to, but I do think you might say yes this one time and show you're not proud and stuck up. It'd do you good!"
"I believe it would, and I'll go!" cried Win. She was in the mood to say "yes" to anything.
"Hully gee! That's the best thing's happened to me since the measles!" exclaimed Miss Leavitt jovially. "I'll call for you at your place half-past nine this evening, so you can have a good rest before you begin fixin' yourself up."
"It's an engagement," said Win, with a kind of self-defiance.