Next she called up Marie, and without letting her know why, asked for a list of the luncheon guests.
Marie told her at once, without asking why she wanted to know.
There were nine beside the Homers, and Patty was acquainted with them all.
She called them up each in turn on the telephone, and explained carefully that a mistake had been made in the invitations, and she hoped they would come on the first instead of the eighth.
Fortunately, all of them were able to do this, and Patty enjoined each one to say nothing about this change of date, until they should arrive at the party.
To a few of her more intimate friends,—Mona, Elise, and
Christine,—she told the whole story, and they fell in with her plans.
And so it came about, that on the first of April preparations were going blithely forward in the Homer apartment, for Bee's elaborate luncheon.
It was all true, exactly as Patty had figured it out; and Kit and Beatrice had planned what they considered a first-class and entirely permissible practical joke.
They knew that Mrs. Homer would make elaborate preparations for the luncheon, but they agreed that there would be no other harm done. And to them, the fun of seeing the perplexity of Marie and her mother at the non-appearance of their guests, was sufficient reason for their scheme. Moreover, they fell back on the time-honoured tradition that any joke was justifiable on April Fools' Day.
In addition to all this, Beatrice did not want to attend the luncheon party, and as by chance it had been left to her to seal up and address the invitations that Marie had written, and as Kit came in while she was doing it, their fertile brains had discovered that, as the dates fell on the same day of the week, the first could easily be changed to the eighth! And the two sinners chuckled with glee over the fact that another luncheon would have to be prepared the week following.