Beatrice, coming downstairs at eight o'clock that evening, to assist in receiving the guests, found Miss Billy seated on the hearth rug, while Ted bedecked her hair with an artistic arrangement of feathers pulled out of the duster.
The elder sister looked disturbed. "Goodness!" she said. "Don't let Ted do that. I hope you're not intending to wear those things."
"Why not?" said Miss Billy carelessly. "The feather duster's moulting, anyway."
"It isn't the duster I'm thinking of. It's you. Why will you be so ridiculous before visitors?"
"Oh, pshaw," exclaimed Miss Billy impatiently. "I'm doing it for fun. The 'visitors' are only girls and boys."
"Mr. Lindsay is twenty-four," replied Beatrice with dignity, "and I am not a child."
"Oh, ho!" jeered Ted, "you're both Methusalehs! Lindsay's got more sense than most people of his age. He's more like sixteen than twenty-four."
Miss Billy had already removed the towering plumes.
"I love my darling sister so
That I would much for her forego,"