“I think all that, too,” agreed Midge, “but I only thought if it would hurt Larky’s feelings to see us girls looking so disreputable, we might spruce into clean clothes before we saw the Mortimers.”
“What do you think, Kit?” said King, with a sudden remembrance of Kitty’s good sense in a dilemma.
Kitty, much elated at being appealed to, answered at once:
“I think King’s right. It’s our house, and this is our whole show. Miss Larkin has company to-night, and that’s her whole show. We needn’t interfere with each other at all. ’Course it’s too bad that we look so dirty and all, but who wouldn’t, after they’d been managing a whole fire? And so I say, let’s march right in, and not act as if we’d been doing anything wrong. We haven’t, and I don’t see, Mops, why you act as if we had.”
“It isn’t wrong,” said Marjorie, still standing still, and digging her patent-leather toe thoughtfully into the hard ground of the drive; “but I do want to spare Larky’s feelings all I can. She was so particular about our keeping clean, and you know, we truly meant to, and now, look at us!”
“Oh, pshaw!” said Kitty; “we’d have kept lovely and clean if we’d stayed at home. But we went out, and got into this—this predickerment, and ’course we got smoky and all. We can get washed and dressed after we tell Larky all about it. Come on, do; I’m awful hungry, and I’m tired, too.”
“All right,” said Marjorie, still a little doubtful; “come on, then. You can walk now, can’t you, Posy Pet?”
“Ess; I’s all wested now. Take hold my hand.”
So the four Maynards, hand in hand, walked on, and then mounted the broad steps of their own front verandah.
“Come on, Mrs. Simpson,” said Marjorie, over her shoulder. Her voice was full of the kindest hospitality and welcome. In doubt about Miss Larkin’s attitude in the matter, she might be; in doubt about the wisdom of making their entrance before strange guests, without first repairing their toilets, she might be; but in Marjorie’s honest little heart there was not a shadow of doubt that she was doing right in offering the shelter of her home to these unfortunate refugees.