Then, as the front door bell was ringing, the housekeeper went to answer it. Geraldine, standing among the confusion and litter, watched the retreat with flashing eyes.
“Little girl, indeed! Our housekeeper always addressed me as Miss Geraldine. Country ways and country servants are certainly hard to understand.”
Her torrent of angry thoughts was interrupted by a sweet voice calling: “Geraldine, two girls are coming up to see you.”
Geraldine looked around the room wildly, but before she had time to decide what she could do to prevent the girls from entering, they were standing in the open door.
“Oh, good morning, Miss Drexel and Miss Lee,” the unwilling hostess exclaimed, with a quickly assumed graciousness which had been acquired at the young ladies’ select seminary. “Wait until I remove a few dresses from the chairs and I will ask you to be seated.”
Doris and Merry exchanged puzzled glances. They felt Geraldine’s true attitude of mind, and the former said: “Oh, Miss Morrison, we really ought not to have made so early a morning call, but we have decided to go to the Drexel Lodge on Little Bear Lake tomorrow, and there are so many things to talk about. We did try to telephone, but the line is out of order, but first do let us help you put away your things.”
To Geraldine’s amazement, the two girls removed their wraps, laughing and chatting the while in a most social fashion.
“I’m going to suggest that we drop formality,” Merry said, “and call each other by our first names; and now, Geraldine, I just know that you are ever so tired with unpacking, so you sit here and tell us where you want these dresses hung, and presto, we’ll have them up in a twinkling.”
“But I cannot permit you girls to wait upon me!” the hostess protested.
“Why not?” Doris inquired. “My mother says that the most beautiful thing that we can do is loving service for one another. Oh, what a darling dress this is! It glows like jewels, doesn’t it, Merry?”