“I am glad to be at home. I am so glad to come, even thus late to the House Party.”
And though she had said the misunderstanding that had made both herself and Dolly so unhappy “should be set right that very night,” maybe this was her way of “setting” it so.
Thus ended another Day of that Wonderful Week, but the morning proved rainy and dark.
“No day for going to the County Fair,” remarked Mrs. Calvert as she appeared among the young folks, just as they came trooping in to breakfast. “We must think of something else. What shall it be? Since I’ve invited myself to your Party I want to get some fun out of it!”
Helena thought she had never seen anything lovelier than this charming old lady, who moved as briskly as a girl and entered into their amusements like one; and when nobody answered her question she volunteered the suggestion:
“Charades? Or a little play in the big barn?”
“Just the thing; the charades, I mean. There would hardly be time for getting ready for a play, with parts to study and so on. We might plan that for Friday evening, our last one together. But do you, my dear, gather part of your friends about you and arrange the charades. Enough of us must be left for audience, you know. Well, Dorothy, what is it? You seem so anxious to speak?”
“Why not ‘character’ studies and make everybody guess. There’s that attic full of trunks I discovered one day. Surely they must be full of lovely things; and oh! it’s so jolly to ‘dress up’! Afterward, we might have a little dance in the barn—May we, may we?”
“Surely, we may! Dinah has the keys to the trunks, only I warn you—no carelessness. It’s one of my notions to preserve the costumes of the passing years and I wouldn’t like them injured. You may use anything you find, on the condition of being careful.”