Luckily for the embarrassed girl, at this moment Mrs. Henderson led her into the reception room and left her to regain her composure while she transacted her business with the matron in an adjoining room.
The remarkable quiet which reigned in this home of age oppressed Virginia, so that when Mrs. Henderson returned with the matron, she cried, impulsively, “Oh, Hennie, I am glad that you are back. This place is so still that it is lonesome.”
Mrs. Henderson turned to Mrs. Smith, the matron. “That is what I have always said,” she argued. “The old ladies like it quiet, but we overdo it here. The place is a grave. We should have more entertainment.” She looked questioningly at the girl. “What do you think should be done, child?”
Virginia’s blue eyes were very serious as she answered, “I hardly know–almost anything which would make it happier. It needs something to stir it up,” she ended impulsively.
The older woman laughed and Mrs. Henderson put her arm about the girl’s waist, and suggested, “You have nothing on your hands, child. Why can’t you arrange some sort of an entertainment for these elderly women?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she demurred shyly.
“Certainly you can, you are quite old enough to undertake the task of making these old people happier for an afternoon.”
Into the girl’s mind came a remembrance of her birthday gift. “I will be glad to do it, Hennie,” she agreed with great seriousness.
They paused at Mrs. Henderson’s gate as they returned from the Lucinda Home. “Won’t you come in, dear?” urged the older woman.
The girl, dreamily engaged in planning marvelous but impossible entertainments for the stirring up of the old ladies, did not hear.