“Well, we’re going to have some company this evening! Besides the Hadleys, I mean!”
“Oh, now you just have to tell me who! I’m awfully curious. It couldn’t be Roger and Doris—no—they’d have let me know if they had changed their plans about coming home.”
“It isn’t Roger and Doris! But that’s all you’ll get out of me! Now, Marie Louise, be a good girl and let me read my story. It’s a continued one, and this is the last installment.”
By exerting a huge amount of self-control, Marie Louise managed to refrain from asking further questions until Ethel announced that she was finished, and that the growing twilight would prevent her from starting another story.
“Now will you tell me?” asked the younger girl, laying aside her fancy work.
“I don’t need to!” laughed Ethel. “The surprise—or part of it—is arriving already!” Nevertheless, she whispered something illuminating in the other girl’s ear.
At that moment a young man approached the gate, and was opening it while Ethel was speaking. Marie Louise regarded him intently, anxious to identify him, in spite of the diminishing light. But she did not think she had ever seen him before.
“Dick Roberts!” exclaimed a voice from the doorway; and as the young man mounted the steps, Lily, who had been up in her room ever since her return from the garage, stepped out on the porch. Smilingly she introduced him to Marie Louise.
“So this is the surprise you mentioned at supper!” she observed to Ethel. “But when did you two see each other?”
“We didn’t!” laughed Dick, with a significant look at Ethel.