Presently Mrs. Allen and Kitty, in the Allens' surrey, stopped by for her. With them was a boy she had never seen before, a tall, dark boy in a blue-grey braided coat and white duck trousers—a military cadet!
He was introduced as Kitty's cousin, Jim Henley. Missy had heard about this Cousin Jim who was going to visit Cherryvale some time during the summer; he had arrived rather unexpectedly that day.
Kitty herself—in pink dotted mull, of course—was looking rather wan. Mrs. Allen explained she had eaten too much of the candy Cousin Jim had brought her.
Cousin Jim, with creaking new shoes, leaped down to help Missy in. She had received her mother's last admonition, her father's last banter, Aunt Nettie's last anxious peck at her sash, and was just lifting her foot to the surrey step when suddenly she said: “Oh!”
“What is it?” asked mother. “Forgotten something?”
Missy had forgotten something. But how, with mother's inquiring eyes upon her, and father's and Aunt Nettie's and Mrs. Allen's and Kitty's and Cousin Jim's inquiring eyes upon her, could she mention Raymond's bouquet in the summerhouse? How could she get them? What should she say? And what would they think? “No,” she answered hesitantly. “I guess not.” But the bright shining of her pleasure was a little dimmed. She could not forget those flowers waiting, waiting there in the summerhouse. She worried more about them, so pitifully abandoned, than she did about Raymond's having to go without a remembrance.
Missy sat in the back seat with Mrs. Allen, Kitty in front with her cousin. Now and then he threw a remark over his shoulder, and smiled. He had beautiful white teeth which gleamed out of his dark-skinned face, and he seemed very nice. But he wasn't as handsome as Raymond, nor as nice—even if he did wear a uniform.
When they reached the Bonners they saw it all illumined for the party. The Bonners' house was big and square with a porch running round three sides, the most imposing house in Cherryvale. Already strings of lanterns were lighted on the lawn, blue and red and yellow orbs. The lights made the trees and shrubs seem shadowy and remote, mysterious creatures a-whisper over their own business.
Not yet had many guests arrived, but almost immediately they appeared in such droves that it seemed they must have come up miraculously through the floor. The folding camp chairs which lined the parlours and porches (the rented chairs always seen at Cherryvale parties and funerals) were one moment starkly exposed and the next moment hidden by light-hued skirts and by stiffly held, Sunday-trousered dark legs. For a while that stiffness which inevitably introduces a formal gathering of youngsters held them unnaturally bound. But just as inevitably it wore away, and by the time the folding chairs were drawn up round the little table where “hearts” were to be played, voices were babbling, and laughter was to be heard everywhere for no reason at all.
At Missy's table sat Raymond Bonner, looking handsomer than ever with his golden hair and his eyes like black velvet pansies. There was another boy who didn't count; and then there was the most striking creature Missy had ever seen. She was a city girl visiting in town, an older, tall, red-haired girl, with languishing, long-lashed eyes. She wore a red chiffon dress, lower cut than was worn in Cherryvale, which looked like a picture in a fashion magazine. But it was not her chic alone that made her so striking. It was her manner. Missy was, not sure that she knew what “sophisticated” meant, but she decided that the visiting girl's air of self-possession, of calm, almost superior assurance, denoted sophistication. How eloquent was that languid way of using her fan!