"I've thought of that, too!" Kate spoke with an eagerness more pathetic than tears. "Of course many of those boys and girls I used to know have boys and girls of their own now. It's many years since I've seen them, but—I think they won't all have forgotten me. If you like, I'll write and ask some of them to let their children visit us?"
If Jemima had any knowledge of the wincing courage this offer cost, she did not show it. "You're very kind to think of it," she said, "but I believe it will be better if Jacqueline and I make our own friends now, thank you."
Cut to the quick, Kate made no further effort to promote the social campaign. But it went on without her.
One evening Professor Thorpe, after his weekly supper at Storm, followed her into her office with an air of mingled embarrassment and importance.
"Oh, dear!" she thought. "It's coming again."
But she was mistaken. He had a proposal of another sort to make; in fact an announcement.
"I am about to give an entertainment," he said, clearing his throat. "A party. A dancing party."
She looked at him in amazement. "You? A dancing party?"
"Why not? It is to be for your girls, and I shall expect you to chaperon it."
She threw back her head and laughed aloud. "Dear old Jim! I should be as much out of place in a ballroom now as—as a plow horse. But the girls will be overjoyed. How did you happen to evolve such an idea?"