After dinner Miss Frazier settled down, expecting to finish “The King of the Fairies” before the guests began to arrive, leaving the girls to amuse themselves in their own way. Elsie wandered out on to the star-lighted terrace, looking exactly like a dreamy fairy. Kate went with her, not speaking, and soon leaving her, to find her way around to the kitchen door.
The servants in their own attractive dining-room were just beginning dinner. Kate had forgotten how many of them there would be, and was almost overcome with embarrassment, when they all leapt to their feet and the maids walked around her in a circle, exclaiming admiringly. “I just wanted to show Julia the new frock Aunt Katherine gave me,” Kate was explaining a little breathlessly. “I never seem to see you, Julia,” she added, catching her eye at last in the group, “and I never really thanked you for the gingerbread man and your kind inquiries about Mother.”
“To think,” exclaimed Julia, “of my giving you a gingerbread man! Where were my wits? Why, you’re a young lady. But your mother liked gingerbread even after she was a young lady.”
“You’ll have a fine time at your party in that gown,” Isadora affirmed. “You couldn’t help it. There’ll be nothing half so beautiful.”
Meanwhile Bertha beamed. In a way she felt responsible for this young vision of splendour. Hadn’t she helped choose the dress, and hadn’t she finally put Kate into it! She was certainly involved in the display.
Then Julia said, feelingly, “We’re all grateful to you, Miss Kate, for bringing a party to this house again, for getting things natural. Miss Frazier’s acting like herself now, and it’s on account of you.”
“Why, I haven’t done anything,” Kate denied.
But she liked their praise and their warmth, and she felt now entirely in the mood for the party to begin.
CHAPTER XIV
THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN
Soon after eight Miss Frazier stood regally in the wide hall between her two nieces, receiving and introducing the first arrivals. They came fluttering in at the big wide-open door—girls in shimmering, fluffy party frocks of rainbow colours; boys, mostly in white flannels and dark coats, but a few in tuxedos; and a thin scattering of two older generations, these latter gray-haired grandmothers and younger matrons—some of the mothers looking scarcely older than their own children, in the modern manner. All was murmuring, laughter. Then the orchestra placed back in the blue breakfast-room began tuning their instruments. Jack Denton claimed Kate for the first dance. He danced perfectly, much better than Kate, in fact, who had had little experience; and all the time he kept up a stream of interesting nonsense. Kate laughed at him and swung along more and more in harmony with the music. How gay, how merry it all was! Elsie floated past, her green chiffon draperies like airy wings.