"Since there will be three gentlemen, Ginevra," Miss Roberta said on Saturday morning when they sat together in the Italian parlor after breakfast, "do you not think we had better have Halcyone down to dinner to-night? I know," she added timidly, "it is not in the proper order of things, but we could make an exception."
Miss La Sarthe frowned. Roberta so often was ready to upset regulations. She was difficult to deal with. But this suggestion of hers had some point.
They would be two ladies to three of the other sex—and one of their guests appeared to be quite a young man—perhaps it might be more prudent to relax a rule, than to find themselves in an embarrassing position.
"I strongly deplore the fact of children ever being brought from their seclusion except for dessert, but as you say, Roberta, three gentlemen—and one a perfect stranger—might be too much for us. I hardly think our Mamma would have approved of our giving such an unchaperoned party, so for this once Halcyone had better come down. She can have Mr. Miller for her partner, you will be conducted by the Professor—and the new guest will take me in."
Miss Roberta bridled—the Professor was now a hero in her eyes.
"And Sister," she said, "I think we might bring six of the chairs from Sir Timothy's bed- and dressing-room just for to-night, instead of those Windsor ones. It would give the dining-room a better look, do you not think so?"
And to this also Miss La Sarthe agreed. So Miss Roberta joyfully found Halcyone out upon the second terrace and imparted to her the good news. They would arrange flowers in the épergne, she suggested—a few sweet williams and mignonette and a foxglove or two. A pretty posy fixed in sand, such as she remembered there always was in their gala days. Halcyone was enchanted at the prospect.
"Oh! dear Aunt Roberta, do let me do it all," she said. "You sit here on the bench and I will run and fetch the épergne—and we can pick what we think best. Or—don't you think just a big china bowl full of sweet peas would be prettier? The sand might show and, and—the épergne is rather stiff."
But Miss Roberta looked aggrieved. The épergne with its gold and silver fern leaves climbing up a thin stalk of glass to its top dish for fruit had always come out for dinner parties and she liked not innovations. It was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with care to be smuggled away, leaving the sweet peas sole occupants of the sand. But the effect was very festive and the two carried their work into the dining-room well pleased.
The best Sèvres dinner-set was had out, which that traveler Timothy had brought from Paris among other things, and the best cut glass and rat-tailed silver. Old William, assisted by Hester and Priscilla, had been busy polishing most of the day—while the cook and the "young person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen. And punctually at seven in broad daylight, the three Misses La Sarthe, the two elder in their finest mauve silk evening dresses, awaited their guests in the Italian parlor.