"Oh, no, you won't," contradicted Elfreda. "I have reserved that privilege for myself."
"We are ready," exulted Anne outside Elfreda's door half an hour later. "What did I tell you?"
"So am I," replied Elfreda, opening the door. "And so is Miriam."
Elfreda was looking particularly handsome in her evening gown of golden brown messaline, trimmed with dull gold embroidery. By constant training and self-denial she had reduced her weight to one hundred and thirty-five pounds and could not be truthfully called stout. Her fair hair was piled high upon her head, and one dull gold butterfly gleamed in its wavy meshes. Miriam's gown was in her favorite apricot shade of crepe de chine and brought out fully the beauty of her black hair and eyes and her exquisite coloring. Mabel had chosen black silk net over delft blue, while Patience wore a gray chiffon frock over gray silk with touches of old rose, a frock exactly suited to her calm, high-bred type of face. Anne's dainty white crepe de chine frock made her look anything but a theatrical star. Grace, however, had for once departed from her favorite blue and wore a white chiffon gown whose exquisitely simple lines made the most of her slender, supple figure. The charm of early sixteen radiated from her youthful person, and she looked no older than when she had led the freshman basketball team on to victory in Oakdale High School.
"Grace can't grow up in spite of her long skirts and done-up hair," smiled Miriam.
"That is precisely what I was thinking," agreed Anne. "Is she sixteen or twenty-three?"
"Aren't you pleased with us, Father, and won't you feel inordinately proud of your theatre party?" called Mabel from the stairway as they descended to the hall, where Mr. Ashe stood looking reflectively into the fire as he waited for his charges.
"Mere words fail to express my admiration," he laughed, bowing to the sextette of pretty girls, who smilingly nodded their appreciation of his speech.
"Isn't he a perfect angel?" asked Mabel, sidling up to him and slipping within the circle of his arm. "I don't see how I ever had the heart to go to college and leave him."
"She has no compunction about rushing off to work on a newspaper, day after day, and leaving me daughterless," complained Mr. Ashe lightly. Yet a shadow so slight as to be hardly noticeable crossed his face, which no one save the lynx-eyed Elfreda saw, who made mental note of it. "He doesn't want her to work," was her shrewd conclusion.