"My trunk isn't here—what in the world shall I put on?" was her first anxiety. She opened the door of her closet, to find all her last summer's frocks newly "done up" and hanging there in inviting daintiness. She caught at the lilac muslin, now faded by many washings into a mere tint, but looking so like home and good times that it seemed the fitting thing to don, in the absence of her heavier dresses, even upon an April night.
A half-hour later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the sort of home-coming she had planned, this reception by one person. But it was nearly ten o'clock already, she had managed to consume so much time upstairs. Also, upon Joanna's return to her room to inquire if there were anything else she wanted, the young mistress of the house had imperatively commanded the presence in the living-room of the middle-aged housekeeper until such time as Max and the boys should arrive. Joanna, with her neat black dress and smooth hair, was certainly fitted in appearance for the duties of duenna, and Sally had felt no hesitation whatever in requiring her to assume that rôle.
So Joanna now waited in the living-room—rather reluctantly, it must be admitted, for it seemed to her that this was carrying chaperonage unnecessarily far. But Jarvis was in the hall, and the door had been closed between. Sally did not realize this latter fact until she had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, where Jarvis, the moment that he had caught sight of her, had advanced to meet her. She looked at the door with a startled expression. It was ordinarily kept open, except in very cold weather.
"Yes, I know it's shut," said the young man at the foot of the stairs, with a smile. "Awful situation, isn't it? But you can escape back up the stairs—if you are quick. I warn you that you'll have to be very quick!"
"Will you give me sixty seconds' start?"
"Not I. You've had five months' start—that's enough. Now you are back—how well you are looking!"
She stood still, two steps above him. Even so, she had not much the advantage of him in height.
"So are you," she retorted. "But we don't need to stay out here to tell each other that. Let's—"
"Are you so eager to see Joanna again? She's looking very well also—for
Joanna—but she can wait a minute or two to hear it."
"Joanna has been so good—she's cleaned the whole house for me. She—"