"Can't do it." Elfreda beamed mysteriously on the Emerson twins. "Curb your curiosity, twins. Wait patiently and the future shall unfold itself to you as an open book. I wouldn't make a bad fortune teller myself," she added humorously. "That's the way they usually talk."
"I am so disappointed at not seeing Emma here, too," sighed Grace Harlowe. "It seems ages since we said good-bye to each other at Overton. You don't suppose anything has happened to her, do you, Elfreda?"
"Of course not. Take my word for it, she'll be here before we are a day older. There, that finishes the decorations." Elfreda triumphantly fastened into place the last of a quantity of Chinese lanterns that she and her friends had been stringing about the grounds, viewing the work with a sigh of satisfaction. "These won't give much light, but they'll look pretty. The electric light will have to do the real illuminating act. The table looks sweet, doesn't it?"
Several voices sent up laudatory affirmations. Though the Sempers had arrived only that morning they had entered heart and soul soul into Elfreda's plan for a dinner on the lawn that evening, with the added treat of communing with a real fortune-teller afterward. In order to give the mysterious sooth-sayer a proper setting, a veritable grotto had been arranged for her inside a small summer house at one end of the lawn, on which the light would shine only faintly, thereby according her the eerie environment so necessary to one whose business it is to foretell the future.
Luncheon over, the Sempers had wandered in and out of one another's rooms, exchanging confidences and reminiscences, while a wholesale unpacking of their effects went on. Later Elfreda had marshalled them to the lawn, where their tongues continued to wag busily as they strung the many-colored lanterns on every available bush, or between such trees as could be easily put into use.
"We'd better be thinking about getting dressed for the evening," reminded Miriam Nesbit, consulting her wrist watch. "It is after six o'clock."
"I hope it gets dark early," commented Elfreda, with a reflective squint at the sky. "It will be more fun to have dinner then. Still I don't care to let the august Sempers starve while we are waiting for night to come."
"Oh, have dinner late," chorused several voices. "It will be ever so much more fun."
"I think so, too," nodded Grace. "We'll be good and hungry then and enjoy it even better for the waiting."
"You hear the counsel of honorable Semper Harlowe," stated Elfreda automatically. "Those in favor please respond in the usual manner by saying 'aye.' Contrary 'no.' I am delighted to find you of one mind," she added, with a beaming smile, as no dissenting voice arose. "You shall be amply rewarded for such noble self-sacrifice."