Somehow, there was a slight trembling in the hostess’s slender frame and she put out her white hand against the porch-pillar to steady herself. Somehow, too, there seemed a little mist in her bright eyes, as she peered anxiously outward toward her arriving guests. Had they all come? Everyone whom she had bidden to her “infair?”
In the first carriage, the state barouche, sat the four grayheaded “Boys” whom she had known all their lives and for whom her best was prepared. In the next was “that slip of a girl,” one Mrs. Lucretia Hungerford, a “girl” whose locks were already touched with the rime of years; a rather stern and dignified person who could be no other than Miss Isobel Greatorex of whom Dorothy had written; and a cadet in gray. A West Pointer! Off for the briefest of “furloughs” and a too-short reunion with his radiant mother. Cadet Tom Hungerford, and no other. Also, within that open trap a third gentlewoman, brought by Mrs. Hungerford’s invitation for a short “tour of the States” to see what sort of home it was unto which she would consign her son, the lad Melvin come to try his fortunes so far from home. The little widow, Mrs. Cook, indeed; past mistress in the art of making gardens and good dinners, and happy in her unexpected outing as a child. To her bonny face under its white hair, with her lovely English color and her sorrow-chastened smile, the heart of Mrs. Betty immediately went out in interest and admiration. Stranger though she was her welcome, too, was ready.
But it was on that last open pony-cart, with its load of young folks, that the eye of the hostess rested first and last. Such a gay and laughing quartette that was! Molly and Dolly, the blonde and the brunette, Monty and Melvin, the rotund and the slender; but Dolly the gayest, the sweetest, the darlingest of all!
At least, that was what some of those welcoming people, grouped upon the steps, believed with all their hearts. Father John and Mother Martha, Mr. Seth and “Fairy Godmother,” aye and honest Jim, first and faithfullest of comrades—to these there was visible, for one moment, no face save the face of smiling Dorothy.
When they were all housed and supper ended, they gathered in the great parlors, which Alfaretta’s capable hands had adorned with masses of golden-rod, of scarlet woodbine and snowy wreaths of seeding clematis—feathery and quite “too graceful for words,” as Dorothy declared, lovingly hugging Alfaretta who lingered by the door, a new shyness upon her, yet longing to be beside these other girls and lads no older than she, but who had seen so much more of the world in which they all lived.
Then when Mrs. Betty begged:
“Now if all are rested, let’s compare our notes of the summer and tell what each found loveliest to remember. Come in, Alfaretta, and cuddle down with the rest upon the rugs before the fire. Old Deerhurst is at its best, to-night, filled with happiness. Now, Dr. Ryall, as once-master of these other ‘Boys,’ can you give your happiest thought of the summer?”
The venerable collegian leaned back and twirled his thumbs. He had left his boyishness but not his happiness back in the Markland woods, and it was quite gravely yet simply he answered:
“Why yes, Elizabeth, and easily. It was the awakening of Monty yonder to a sense of his own responsibility as a human being, made in his Creator’s image. He’s got down to bottom facts. He knows it isn’t dollars but doings that make God’s true man. Needn’t blush, my lad; but be reverently thankful.” Then he turned a merry glance upon the company and demanded: “Next?”
And as if he were still in the class-room questioned upon a text-book, his merchant-pupil answered: