Esther stared in surprise.
“Who?” she cried. “Mr. Griffin? Who is Mr. Griffin, for goodness’ sake?”
“Why, young Bob Griffin, from Denboro. Elisha Cook’s grandson. You know who he is. You ought to. He stopped you from bein’ run away with at that horse trot two years ago. Didn’t you know they had given him charge of all the dressin’ up?”
Esther did not know it and she demanded particulars. Her aunt supplied them.
“It was decided at the committee meetin’ they had yesterday afternoon,” she said. “You were over in Ostable, weren’t you; I forgot that. It seems there was a great pow wow, some wanted to wear one kind of thing and some another and then Mrs. Wheeler, the one that has the summer place on the Shore Road, she came marchin’ in with Bob Griffin under one arm, as you might say, and a great idea under the other. She knew Bob—I guess her daughter met him in New York or New Haven or somewhere—and she—or the daughter—had remembered that he was an artist and would know all about what she called ‘period dress.’ Accordin’ to what I heard he wasn’t so sure about his wisdom as she was, by a good deal, but he agreed to help if they wanted him to. The older folks hadn’t much objection and all the girls were crazy about it, so he was made superintendent of what to wear. He is to be at the next rehearsal, whenever that is.”
She paused and Esther nodded.
“To-morrow evening,” she said, “in the church vestry.”
“Well, wherever it is he’ll be there and you can ask him what he thinks of Tabitha Townsend’s dress. Yes, Tabby was the name she had to answer to, poor soul; my own grandmother used to tell me a lot about her.”
Esther left the Clark cottage with the same old little thrill of interest she had felt when Millard had mentioned Bob’s name months before. Now the thrill was a trifle keener, for she was to meet him again. She was not greatly stirred by the prospect; nevertheless it was rather attractive. She found herself thinking about him a good deal in the interval before the rehearsal, wondering if he had changed as greatly as she had, in—oh, so many ways, and if he was succeeding as well with his painting as she with her music. Also she wondered if he had forgotten her. Not that it made any difference, of course, whether he had or not.
Her speculations on that score were quickly settled. She was already in the vestry when he entered, chaperoned by Mrs. Wheeler and favored with the giggling confidences of Marjorie, the Wheeler daughter. Mrs. Wheeler beamed upon the assembly.