“Because,” announced Katherine pompously, “the sidewalks are very narrow. The folder says so. You ought to be an even number.”
“Hear the omniscient globe-trotter!” jeered Mary. “Well, if you think we ought to be an even number, counting Miss Hale, why don’t you solve the difficulty by coming along?”
“Why don’t I?” sighed Katherine. “Because unfortunately my father has five other hungry mouths to feed.”
Betty slid forward to the edge of the couch. “Girls,” said she in a voice that she tried to keep cool and even, “I know some one that I think would love to come with us,—if you really think an even number would be better.”
There was the slightest pause, then, “Is it Eleanor Watson?” asked Bob Parker pleasantly. “Because if it is, I move,—I mean I say that we have her. I’m sure she’d be no end jolly. Tell her to bring her mandolin, so she can play when we go off on moonlight sails.”
Bob Parker, of all persons, championing Eleanor’s cause! Betty felt as if a thunder-bolt had fallen, and she waited in awed silence to see what would happen next. Nothing happened—but more thunder-bolts. Babe said she guessed it was a case of, “The more the merrier.” Babbie wondered if Miss Hale would wish to share her state-room, and suggested that if another could not be procured for Eleanor, the three B’s could easily crowd into one.
“We often sleep three in a single bed, you know,” she explained. Then Mary in matter-of-fact tones announced that she, Babbie, and Betty would go over at once to invite Eleanor, and would report to the rest after study hours. It was all as simple as simple could be. After the meeting had broken up and the envoys had started for the Hilton House, Betty remembered suddenly that she had not even told the girls why she had particularly wanted to include Eleanor.
“But we were just as glad to have her without knowing that,” declared Babbie earnestly after Betty had explained. “This is sort of your party, you know, Betty. And besides Bob has been just hoping you’d give her a chance to make up for what she did last fall—when Georgia joined ‘The Merry Hearts.’ She never meant to be so rude and she was awfully ashamed and wanted to make up for it.”
Eleanor received the invitation in the same cordial spirit in which it was tendered, and accepted it so gratefully that any lurking regrets in the minds of the B’s were speedily dispelled.
As Mary put it, “We’re cozy as we are, but coziness isn’t everything. And anyhow this is Betty’s party, and of course it must go along according to Betty’s ideas—which are always nice after you’ve got used to them.”