The girls exchanged furtive glances, the judge looked rather uncomfortable, while Mr. Henry Hammond frowned openly.
Then there was another ten minutes' wait, that the girls tried to cover with conversation. Then—a rustle of silken skirts and a figure appeared in the archway that caused those assembled to stare in sheer amazement.
Was this fashionably attired person plain every-day Marian Barber? Her hair was drawn high upon her head, and topped with a huge cluster of false puffs, which made her look several years older than she had appeared in the afternoon, while her gown of blue satin was cut rather too low for a young girl, and had mere excuses in the way of sleeves. To cap the climax, however, it had a real train that persisted in getting in her way every time she attempted to move.
For a full minute no one spoke. Grace had an almost irrepressible desire to laugh aloud, as she caught the varied expressions on the faces of her friends. Mr. Hammond alone appeared unmoved. Grace fancied that she even detected a gleam of approval in his eyes as he glanced toward Marian.
"Shall we dine!" asked the judge, offering his arm to Grace, while Tom Gray escorted Miss Putnam, the other young men following with their friends.
The dinner passed off smoothly, although there was a curious constraint fell upon the young people that nothing could dispel.
Marian's gown had indeed proved a surprise to her young friends, and they could not shake off a certain sense of mortification at her lack of good taste.
"How could Marian Barber be so ridiculous, and why did her mother ever allow her to dress herself like that?" thought Grace as she glanced at Marian, who was simpering at some remark that Mr. Henry Hammond was making to her in a voice too low for the others to hear.
Then Grace suddenly remembered that Marian's mother had left Oakdale three weeks before on a three months' visit to a sister in a distant city.
"That deceitful old Henry Hammond is at the bottom of this," Grace decided. "He has probably put those ideas of dressing up into Marian's head. She needs some one to look after her. I'll ask mother if she can stay with me until her mother returns, that is if I can persuade her to come."