There was indeed a struggle going on in Geraldine’s heart, but good sense won out. She slipped an arm affectionately about her friend as she said: “Anyone who is good enough for you to associate with is good enough for me!” The other girls had drifted back to the kitchen to resume their tasks, and these two were alone. “Doris, dear,” Gerry said, “I told your friend, Danny O’Neil, I hoped he would come, and I made Alfred promise to bring him.”
How the pretty face of Doris brightened. “That was mighty nice of you!” she exclaimed. “Now I know he will come. I telephoned him early this morning, but he seemed to think you wouldn’t care to associate with him; that is, not socially.”
Then an imperative voice called from the kitchen: “Say, you two ornaments in there, come on out and help with this chicken.”
At six o’clock all was in readiness, and the seven girls, divested of aprons, waited the ringing of the door bell with cheeks as rosy as their ribbons. They had the house quite to themselves, as Mrs. Angel had obligingly invited Merry’s parents to dinner and Katie had been only too glad to spend the afternoon and evening with her friends below the tracks.
“Here comes somebody. Who do you suppose will arrive first?” Merry had just said when the front door burst open and Jack ushered in Myra Comely. Merry had asked her brother to bring her, but, almost before the door had closed, the bell was jingling, and all of the others arrived at once.
In the whirl of excitement that followed, with everybody welcoming everybody else, no one noticed that Danny had drawn Doris to one side and was giving her a package. “It’s a valentine that I made for you. Book-ends that I carved,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t open it here.”
Geraldine glanced in their direction just as Doris lifted sweet, brown eyes and smiled her appreciation at the boy. But before she could puzzle about the meaning of it, Jack had taken her hand and was leading her into the living-room, which was festooned with strings of red paper hearts. Jokingly he began: “Fair Queen o’ Hearts, I’m the Jack o’ Hearts, won’t you please tell me where you’ve hidden the tarts?”
What a throng of them there was as they swarmed into the brightly lighted living-room.
“Don’t sit down, anybody,” Merry warned. “The party-part is going to start right away. But first you have to draw for partners.” Then she explained that she would pass a basket to the boys that would contain halves of valentines, and that at the same time Gerry would pass one with the other halves to the girls. “You are each to take one, and the two who have the parts of one valentine are to be partners. The girls are to stand still and the boys to do the hunting.”
For ten merry minutes boys darted about matching halves of valentines. The result was rather disappointing to several of them, for Rose was not for Bob, and Jack drew Myra Comely, while Gerry, of all the queer tricks of Fate, was Danny O’Neil’s partner; but they took it in good part, and when Merry put an appropriate song record on the victrola they all marched out to the dining-room. The girls felt quite repaid for their efforts when they heard the sincere exclamation of approval which the boys uttered. Then Merry, as hostess-in-chief, explained that each couple was to select seats and that they should do this thoughtfully, as the ribbons had at the other ends prophecies as to their future. There were tiny bows on the ribbons for girls.