“Send her over here to help me pare potatoes,” Peg sang out. But Merry saw, by the almost startled expression in the city girl’s face, that she would be more apt to cut her fingers than the humble vegetable, and so she replied: “No, Peg, that’s your work. Gerry shall help me set the table.” Then she apologized: “I’m sorry to do the pleasantest thing myself, but no one else knows where the dishes and things are.”
“Oh, it’s all pleasant,” Bertha commented, “when we’re all together.”
“What’s our Rosebud doing?” Gerry sauntered across the kitchen to the stove where their prettiest member stood stirring something in a pot. The “our” proved how completely the city girl felt that she was one of them.
“Making Valentine candy,” that maiden replied. “This is a sort of a white fudge. It’s ever so creamy when it’s whipped. Just delicious with chopped nuts in it. We’re going to make heart shapes, then dip them in red frosting.”
For an hour they all worked busily at their appointed tasks; then Merry and Gerry called the others into the dining-room to see the table.
“Oh-oo, how pretty!”
“Girls, will you look at the red ribbons running from that heart-shaped box in the middle to each place! What’s the idea, Merry?”
“You’ll know later,” their president laughingly informed them. “That’s a surprise for everybody which Jack and I planned last night.”
Then Geraldine exclaimed: “Why, Merry, you have made a mistake, haven’t you? There are sixteen places instead of fifteen.”
“Nary a mistake,” Doris replied. “We have invited that pretty Myra Comely and she has accepted.” Then before the astonished Geraldine could say, “What? Invited a washwoman’s daughter,” Doris was hurrying on to explain how it had happened. “Myra brought our laundry home this morning, and we had quite a long visit. Merry was over at my house, and we both liked her ever so much, and when she said that she had never been to a party, why we just invited her to ours. I hope you don’t mind.” There was a shade of anxiety in the voice of Doris as she glanced at the taller girl, whose expression was hard to read.