If the seven girls seated around the fireplace in the pleasant Angel library had known that the haughty Geraldine was unconsciously about to return their call, they would have been filled with consternation for fear the joke they played upon her would be found out.
CHAPTER IX.
A RETURNED CALL
Fifteen minutes later as the delivery sleigh turned into the drive of the unpretentious Angel home, Betty Byrd, who sat near the window, declared: “Here come the boys.” Then she uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“What is it, Betty?” the others asked, springing up and crowding about her.
“Girls!” Doris exclaimed tragically. “Something terrible is just about to happen. Alfred Morrison and his sister, Geraldine, are in the sleigh. What shall we do? Of course she will recognize us and more than likely she will be mad as a hornet, and we can’t much blame her if she is.”
The girls were filled with consternation, but before they could form a plan, the front door opened and Bob’s cheery voice called: “Ho, Sis, where are you?” So of course Bertha had to go into the hall and he introduced her to the haughty young damsel. Luckily, Geraldine could not see very clearly, having just come in from the dazzling sunlight.
After laying aside her fur-lined coat, the unexpected guest was led into the library, where six anxious maidens stood about the fireplace. Peggy declared afterwards that she didn’t see how Bertha ever got through the introductions so calmly. She was just sure that she would have called someone Matilda Jane Turnip.
Of course, Geraldine greeted Doris with utmost warmth and sat beside her as she exclaimed: “Oh, Miss Drexel, I had a letter from your cousin Adelaine this morning, and she was so eager to have me meet you. We are next-door neighbors and have been the best of friends for years. I wonder why I never met you before.”
“Probably because my mother is an invalid and we have been in California and Florida so much of the time. I am ever so glad to know a friend of Adelaine’s. She is the dearest girl, isn’t she?”
The two were seated apart by themselves and Doris dreaded the moment when their visitor should recognize them as the seven who had called upon her in milkmaid garb the day before. Once she did look very steadily at Peggy, and Doris, noticing this, hurriedly asked some question about her city cousin, hoping to keep the guest’s thoughts in safe channels.