Linda shook her head.
“I put that stuff in the case myself,” she said, “and the clothes on top of it, and she wouldn’t have any reason for taking those things out on the train. I can’t understand, but she did have three rough sketches. She had her heart set on winning that prize and it would be a great help to her, and certainly it was the most comprehensive and convenient plan for a house of that class that I ever have seen. If I ever have a house, she is going to plan it, even if she doesn’t get to plan John Gilman’s as he always used to say that she should. And by the way, Katy, isn’t it kind of funny for Eileen to go away over Sunday when it’s his only holiday?”
“Oh, she’ll telephone him,” said Katy, “and very like, he’ll go down, or maybe he is with her. Ye needn’t waste any sympathy on him. Eileen will take care that she has him so long as she thinks she wants him.”
Later it developed that Eileen had secured the invitation because she was able to produce three most eligible men. Not only was John Gilman with the party, but Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson were there as well. It was in the nature of a hastily arranged celebration, because the deal for three acres of land that Peter Morrison most coveted on the small plateau, mountain walled, in Lilac Valley, was in escrow. He had made a payment on it. Anderson was working on his plans. Contractors had been engaged, and on Monday work would begin. The house was to be built as soon as possible, and Peter Morrison had arranged that the garage was to be built first. This he meant to occupy as a residence so that he could be on hand to superintend the construction of the new home and to protect, as far as possible, the natural beauty and the natural growth of the location.
Early Sunday morning Linda and Katy, with a full lunch box and a full gasolene tank, slid from the driveway and rolled down the main street of Lilac Valley toward the desert.
“We’ll switch over and strike San Fernando Road,” said Linda, “and I’ll scout around Sunland a bit and see if I can find anything that will furnish material for another new dish.”
That day was wonderful for Katy. She trotted after Linda over sandy desert reaches, along the seashore, up mountain trails, and through canyons connected by long stretches of motoring that was more like flying than riding. She was tired but happy when she went to bed. Monday morning she was an interested spectator as Linda dressed for school.
“Sure, and hasn’t the old chrysalis opened up and let out the nicest little lady-bird moth, Katy?” inquired Linda as she smoothed her gray-gold skirts. “I think myself that this dress is a trifle too good for school. When I get my allowance next week I think I’ll buy me a cloth skirt and a couple of wash waists and save this for better; but it really was good of Eileen to take so much pains and send it to me, when she was busy planning a trip.”
Katy watched Linda go, and she noted the new light in her eyes, the new lift of her head, and the proud sureness of her step, and she wondered if a new dress could do all that for a girl; she scarcely believed that it could. And, too, she had very serious doubts about the dress. She kept thinking of it during the day, and when Eileen came, in the middle of the afternoon, at the first words on her lips: “Has my dress come?” Katy felt a wave of illness surge through her. She looked at Eileen so helplessly that that astute reader of human nature immediately Suspected something.
“I sent it special,” she said, “because I didn’t know at the time that I was going to Riverside and I wanted to work on it. Isn’t it here yet?”