"Oh, I don't see now why we were both so mad, only she knocked my hat off, that one with the light blue feathers, and it went sailing down the asphalt, and my umbrella jabbed into her face. 'You're terribly clumsy; I should think you might see what you're doing. You might have put my eye out,' I heard her say in the savagest kind of a tone. Just then I caught sight of my hat, and all I could do was to laugh and laugh, and she thought I was laughing at her, and turned her back on me in a regular frigid Boston way, holding her handkerchief to her eye."
"How could so much happen while two people were getting on a car?"
"Getting on a car! Naturally we missed the car. It didn't wait for us to settle matters. I suppose that was partly what made her so cross. But I wish you could have seen my hat when finally I picked it up."
"I'm glad I didn't, if it was ruined. I have some responsibility for your clothes. No wonder Mrs. Tilworth tries to keep her eye on you!"
"She has to try pretty hard, I can assure you," retorted Martine.
"You should take things more seriously," rejoined Brenda. "In future please come home at least as far as Copley Square with her and Priscilla, but now—yes, now let us go in and look at the table." And with her hand in Brenda's arm, Martine led the way to the dining-room. The sight that met her eye there was indeed well worth seeing. The polished surface of the round mahogany table shone like a mirror. Covers were laid for nine and the centrepiece and doilies were embroidered in yellow. In a tall green glass in the middle were some large yellow chrysanthemums. The bonbons were in little gilded baskets and the china had yellow blossoms on a white ground.
With housewifely pride Brenda adjusted the blinds. "Yes," she said, "I think that everything will go just as it should. Elinor Naylor, you see, is a sister of one of Arthur's best college friends. I should like to have asked her to dine, but the cousin she is staying with has an engagement for her this evening, and as Arthur will be away next week, a luncheon was the best thing I could manage."
"Oh, it's just the thing," cried Martine; "dinners are so stiff. With the boys coming in to take us out to Cambridge, a luncheon will be far jollier than any dinner."
"I hope so," replied Brenda, "and I wonder what this Elinor Naylor is like. She was out when I called, but she writes a beautiful note, and from what I have heard, I imagine that she is rather stately and elegant. But dear me, it's nearly twelve, and with luncheon at one we shall really have to hurry." So with a few last touches to the table Brenda and Martine went to their rooms, and long before one, Brenda, with some trepidation, was waiting in the library for the arrival of her special guest. The Harvard boys, however, were the first to arrive—Fritz Tomkins, and Martine's brother Lucian, and Robert Pringle, Lucian's classmate. Next came Priscilla and Amy, the former somewhat abashed at hearing the laughter from the little library, and wondering if she could be late, until Amy reassured her. Priscilla bore some good-natured chaffing from her host, who seeing her glance at her watch, could not forbear teasing her.
"Yes," he said, "I can read the workings of a guilty conscience. Here we've been waiting for you this long time. The goose is burning up in the oven—"