“Oh, please do mine first,” begged Babbie, “and tell me all about my wedding and after. Why didn’t you tell us before that you could read palms?”
“Because I learned only last week,” Madeline defended herself coolly, and then proceeded to read all Babbie’s future in the lines of her soft little hands in a manner that Babbie and Betty agreed in characterizing as “just perfectly wonderful.”
The Dignified Dinner was to be at seven. At six Betty arrived to arrange the yellow roses, dispose the crested place-cards according to Miss Raymond’s orders, and make sure that Celine was doing her part and that Nora understood what hers was to be.
“My mam’selle is making ze letter in ze libraire,” Celine told her disconsolately. “She belong in ze chambre making ze toilette. Voilà! What is it to be done?”
“The salad—for us,” laughed Betty, and Celine joined in good-naturedly, only stopping now and then in the construction of the salad to reconnoiter in her mam’selle’s quarters and to lament that “ze toilette” was even yet not begun.
But at quarter to seven Miss Raymond, “ze toilette” completed, though rather sketchily, hurried into the kitchen.
“Oh, Miss Wales,” she began, “is everything ready? Did I tell you about the seating? Did I tell you that Professor Francis isn’t coming? So now I want Mrs. Merwin opposite Mr. Joram.” She swept back to the table. “It’s very pretty,” she said, gazing absently from the roses to the crests. “These cards are beautifully done. Did I ask you to plan music or something of the sort for later? But of course that’s not catering. I’m as nervous to-night as a freshman before mid-years—and as stupid. I simply haven’t had one minute to think since last Sunday. Do I look fit to be seen, Miss Wales? Oh, thank you. Hooking the hostess up isn’t catering either, but you do it so well. I’ll run up and find a pin to put into that lace in one minute. But first tell me, are any of my guests musical? Have they any parlor tricks? Intellectual dinners are such bores, Miss Wales, unless they’re made to be distinctive somehow.”
Overwhelmed by the tide of questions, Betty ran over the guest-list without finding any one whose “parlor trick” she knew.
“I’m sorry,” she faltered. “I didn’t know you wanted me to plan any entertainment. I thought——”
“Oh, never mind,” Miss Raymond cut in abruptly. “The table is very nice and Celine’s cooking—it’s all right, Miss Wales, only I’d dreamed of something—what is it that you girls say?—stunty. Something that would be like your tea-shop, and that would give Mr. Joram a whiff of the informal, amusing college atmosphere. I ought to have said so plainly. I never make myself clear.” Miss Raymond sank into the nearest chair with an air of complete discouragement.