“Tell ’em they can’t come in,” said Maisie. “It isn’t fair.”
“Yes,” agreed Grace. “Just open the door, and tell them they must wait till next week. I’ll tell them, if you want me to. My brother Clayton is there, and I’ll make him take the others away.”
“I’ll go to the door,” said Dotty. “I can make them go away. If Doll goes, she’ll be so good-natured she’ll let them in. And we haven’t enough—well, that is,—we don’t want them to-day.”
The noise continued, and the boys were now peeping in at the windows, and making signs of impatience.
Dotty and Grace opened the door, intending to persuade the would-be visitors to depart in peace, but the boys entered in a sort of flying wedge. It would have taken far more than two girls to keep them out. They were by no means rude or boisterous, but they were so determined to come in,—that they just came.
“Whew!” shouted Lollie Henry, “if this isn’t a peach of a place! How do you do, Dolly and Dotty! I suppose you’re hostesses. Yes, we will come in, thank you! De-lighted.”
And all the other boys,—and there were half a dozen of them,—joined the acclamation.
“Looky here at the dining-room! Well, maybe we aren’t swell! Wowly-wow-wow! See the dinky little kitchen-place! What do you cook, girls? Oh, no, thank you, we can’t stay to supper. Oh, no, we really can’t. So sorry! Still, of course, if you insist—”
The Two D’s gave in. The boys were so honestly interested and admiring, and they wanted to see everything so much that the hostesses couldn’t bear to turn them out, and indeed, they couldn’t turn them out if they had tried. So they let them stay, ungrudgingly, and after viewing the whole domain, the entire company surrounded the Study fire once more. The boys mostly sat on the floor, but that made it all the merrier.
“I’ll tell you the honest truth,” said Dolly, a little later. “We’ve got enough cakes and fruit for one piece all round, if that will satisfy you, all right.”