Lucy was not far away and as Dorothea submitted to the final fluffing of her ruffles she assured her anxious maid that she was quite well and that it would not be necessary for Lucy to take the tray till morning.
“I didn’t eat everything,” she remarked. “Perhaps I shall want a sandwich before I go to bed.”
She did her best to conceal her anxiety for the man on the roof. If he held to his plan to stay but a few moments in her room and then make his way to Hal’s to rest, she felt he had a good chance to escape undetected; but she would be on pins and needles for a while. However she did not mean to show that she was not entirely herself, and sailed down the stairs and into the parlor with as composed a face as she could muster. And she made a pretty picture in her wide Suisse dress and fresh crisp ruffles, conscious that, although her clothes were not excessively magnificent they would appear rich in comparison with the other girls’, who were forced by the war to wear gowns which had been turned and remade again and again.
Lucy, standing with the other servants on the outskirts of the hall, voiced her pride loudly.
“Ain’t Miss Dee the prettiest an’ the sweetest little lady heah?” she demanded of Merry beside her. “I jes lak to set her up on a pedistool and let yoh-all have a look at her. She’s little foots got a arch on ’em yoh could let water run under and never wet the sole. ’Tain’t no field-han’s foot I’m tellin’ yoh, and her waist’s that tenchy I don’t have to pull her laces while she hol’s her bref. An’ eve’y las’ one of her clo’s is jes’ kivered wif real lace! That’s right! I ain’t sayin’ a word but the truf.”
“Fine feathehs make fine birds,” Merry sniffed scornfully. She was jealous of any one who might dare to hint at rivaling her young mistress. “Yoh can talk all yoh’s a-mind to about she’s clo’s, but what I’s looking at is she’s hair. Jes’ common black, ’tain’t sure enough gold lak Lil’ Miss’!”
Dorothea slipped into the parlor, to be captured at once by Mrs. Stewart who was talking to Val Tracy. The elder woman held out a compelling hand to her, without stopping the steady flow of her conversation.
“It may be as you say,” she was complaining in her usual tone. “I’ll certainly ask Colonel Stewart to inquire into it, and if you are right perhaps Peru is the best place for us to go, after all. But it’s strange I never heard of the Incas if they are as old a family as the Polks. Probably they are just nouveaux riches.... Kiss your Aunt Cora, dear,” she went on to Dorothea with scarcely a break in the easy flow of her words. “That dress is too sweet and lovely. I think I’ll have to copy it for Corinne. She has been complaining that she hasn’t anything fit to wear, but I tell her, ‘what’s the use if we are going to Mexico?’ And now it may be Peru and that’s further still, isn’t it, Val?”
“I believe it is,” Tracy remarked, with a twinkling glance toward Dorothea; “but you might stop at Mexico on the way and see how you liked it. Mayn’t I have this dance, Miss Drummond?” he ended, turning to the girl whose feet were already in motion to the gallop the negro musicians from the quarter had struck up.
Dorothea nodded and in a moment they were off together.