It was undoubtedly Mrs. Cherry and Helen Louise and Peter; Mrs. Cherry holding a hand of each child and strolling slowly along gazing into shop windows gaily decorated and full of Christmas things. Quite a bit more prosperous-looking trio than of old they were, but Mrs. Cherry, for all the better clothes, was still just as comfortably untidy as ever.
"Mrs. Cherry!"
Arethusa waved wildly, fearful lest her friend should enter the store into whose windows she was at that moment gazing, and miss her altogether. But Mrs. Cherry turned around at this last wild cry, and looked uncertainly up and down the crowded street and across, directly at Arethusa, without recognizing her, or without locating the call.
"Here, Clay," Arethusa began clambering ungracefully over the brakes and handles around the wheel of the car, and across him before he could move. "Here, you take it, I must go speak to Mrs. Cherry!"
"Well, if it ain't Miss Worth'ton!" exclaimed Mrs. Cherry when Arethusa had reached her, after a rather dangerous scramble between trucks and horses and street cars.
Mrs. Cherry beamed all over in expansive greeting; Peter sidled shyly behind her generous proportions, as for shelter; and Helen Louise smiled, timidly, a slightly more toothless smile than hers had been, even a few weeks past.
Arethusa held out both hands. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! I've thought about you often and often and wondered where you were and what you were doing. And Helen Louise and Peter!"
"You look just as pretty as a peach!" declared Mrs. Cherry, with hearty warmth, grasping those outstretched hands to pump them vigorously, up and down. "I never would have knowed you!"
"Come get in the automobile," invited Arethusa, "and then we can talk. And oh!" seized with a sudden inspiration, "go home to lunch with me, it's most lunch time now! Please, please, Mrs. Cherry!"
Mrs. Cherry demurred. But Peter pulled at a fold of her skirt, the word "lunch" had aroused in him a strong, if sudden, sense of lack.