After the theater the Judge insisted on treating the party to hot chocolate and cake, so they were led to a popular resort often frequented during the days by Dorothy and Aurora. This served to round off a very pleasant evening, and as there was nothing to prevent each member of the party from sleeping late the following morning, their happiness was complete.
So urgently did Aunt Betty and Dorothy beg Molly and the Judge to spend the early part of January with them, that the Judge consented, greatly to Molly’s delight.
“Business really demands my attention in New York,” he said, “but I suppose that can wait another week. We don’t have times like this every year, do we Molly, girl?”
“Indeed, no,” responded the person addressed.
“But it will not be my fault hereafter, if you do not have them each year,” said Aunt Betty. “I hereby issue a standing invitation for you both to spend the next holiday season with us, and the next, and the next, and so on, and next year, Judge, you must bring your sister Lucretia. It was an oversight on my part in not inviting her on this occasion.”
“Lucretia has been very busy doing some settlement work, and Christmas is her busy time, hence, she would have been unable to accept your kind invitation. Next year, however, things may have changed. If so, we shall certainly bring her with us.”
There followed a succession of trips to nearby points of interest. The snow, which lay thick during the holidays, began to melt soon after the new year dawned, and, the roads drying hard, Gerald came over one day in the auto and took them for a jaunt in the country.
A fishing excursion to the shores of the bay on another day, with Jim and Ephraim as the pilots, served to demonstrate to the Judge that he was every bit as good a fisherman as he had been in the early days, for he caught eight speckled sea-trout, and three red-fish—a better record than was made by any other member of the party.
Finally, the Judge and Molly took their departure, the former declaring that the duties in New York had become imperative ones. Dorothy hated to lose her chum again, they saw each other so seldom, but agreed with Molly that the latter must spend some time in her own home.