Her hair, to her great sorrow, she could not make stay up on top of her head at all, and she was forced to leave it plaited down her back as of old. She was vaguely dissatisfied with the youthful look it gave her, so arranged, but it could not be helped. She had lost most of her hairpins when it had tumbled down, and Miss Eliza had provided but the one set.
She wondered why there had been no call of "Arethusa!" as when she was late to supper at the Farm; for she must be late, very late. Six o'clock was the supper hour at home. She hastily slipped on the skirt to the blue suit and the pongee waist, without stopping to bother with anything in her trunk, which had been opened and placed in her room for her. How dreadful to be so late to her first meal!
Arethusa fairly plunged down the front stairs, but once at the bottom, she paused uncertainly. She had no idea where the dining-room was. Then she heard voices not far away and she followed the sound into the library, where she found Ross and Elinor in front of a gloriously burning wood fire. But they were both garbed in what to her inexperienced eyes seemed the most pronounced party garments. Ross had donned a Tuxedo and pinned a tiny, pink rose in his buttonhole. Elinor wore a black gown that was very low in the neck to Arethusa, although in reality it was the most modest of décolletage, and a few of the same pink roses were clustered at her belt.
"I was so afraid I was late," began Arethusa breathlessly, then she stopped short, halfway across the room, when she fully realized the costuming of the pair before the fire.
"Oh, you all are giving a Party and I didn't know anything about it!" she exclaimed.
Ross raised himself just a trifle from the comfortable depths of his chair. "Are you quite rested?" he enquired gravely.
But she scarcely heard that he spoke. "Oh, I just wish I'd known it was a Party!" she repeated. "I wish I'd known!" She glanced down at the plainness of her own attire and then at Elinor's simple evening frock.
Her face clouded. And then a truly dreadful thought intruded itself. Perhaps she was not even expected at this Party; that may have been why she had not been called.
Her troubled grey eyes spelled something of this to Elinor, so she pulled a plump chair a little nearer to her own and patted it invitingly, just as Miss Asenath patted the couch for Arethusa to join her.
"It isn't a party, Arethusa dear," said Elinor. "Come over by us and be sociable and I'll tell you all about it."