“The principal feature, though impromptu,” murmured Madeline. “Are you going away back home again for the week before we sail, Betty?”
Betty shook her head. “Nan has packed the things she thinks I’ll want, and I’m to join her at Shelter Island and help get the cottage ready for the rest of the family. They’ll all be here in time to see me off.”
“Why don’t you ask us all down there to spend the day?” suggested Madeline. “Then perhaps our stay-at-home friends would take the hint and give a going-away party for us.”
“But we shan’t be here,” chorused Helen, Roberta, Rachel, Eleanor, and Katherine.
“And I couldn’t possibly come down for all day. Daddy won’t desert Wall Street so soon again,” added Bob sadly.
“It’s a shame not to have the party. We could think of lots of lovely things to do,” sighed Roberta.
“What’s the matter with doing them to-morrow?” proposed Dr. Brooks. “You can’t leave Mrs. Brooks and me too suddenly, you know. We’ve got to get used to missing Mary gradually. Now I’ll take you all to town in the morning and give you lunch at my club. By the time we get back, the house will be in order again and we’ll have that going-away party to amuse us during the evening.”
There was a little objection at first, for all the girls had expected to leave the next day; but Dr. Brooks speedily overruled their arguments. They had come to the wedding, he declared, and cheering up the bereft parents was part of the ceremony—everybody knew that; whereas one day at the other end of the trip wouldn’t matter at all. So Babe nominated Bob and Roberta as committee on arrangements for the going-away party and, according to “Merry Heart” procedure, unceremoniously declared them elected, after which Dr. Brooks carried them off to his study to make plans for the next day’s campaign.
The going-away party was a distinctly collegiate function, marked by all the originality and joyous abandon that belong by right to every Harding festivity. Contrary to social precedent it began with toasts. That was Eleanor’s fault, Bob explained. She had made a mistake and put ice in the lemonade too soon, and so it had to be drunk immediately. So Katherine grew eloquent on “the Sorrows of Parting for the Second Time in Two Weeks, when you have exhausted all your pretty speeches on the first round.” Bob described “Europe As I Shall Not See It,” and Babe “Europe As I Hope to See It if not Prevented by the Frivolity of my Friends.” Madeline was really witty in her account of “the Impromptu Elements in Foreign Travel—myself, the English climate, and others.” Rachel toasted “the Desert Island Honeymooners, absent but not forgotten,” and Dr. Brooks explained “the Uses of Near-Bridesmaids,” to the infinite amusement of his guests. After that Roberta said she was sorry about there not being time for the other toasts, but they were all written down on the program and if everybody would tell Babbie that hers was too cute for anything and Eleanor that she could certainly make the best speeches, they would pass on to the “stunts.”
These consisted of examinations to test the fitness of the European party for its trip. Betty was the first victim. She was required to tie on a chiffon veil “so you will look too sweet for anything and all the men on board the boat will be crazy about you,”—though Rachel pointed out that it wasn’t much of a test, because Betty always looked that way. Next Madeline was requested to prove that she knew how to be seasick on the proper occasions. Babe, whose French accent had been a college joke, was made to “parler-vous” an order for lunch, though she protested hotly that Babbie and Madeline were going to do that part—she had made her family promise solemnly that she shouldn’t be bothered with learning anything ever any more, till she wanted to. And Babbie, who had announced in one breath that she was going to travel with just one little steamer trunk this time, and in the next that she should buy four dresses at least in Paris, was invited to demonstrate how she meant to carry the clothes she needed for the trip and the four dresses all in “one little trunk.”