"Oh, don't thank me. I didn't think of you," she returned bluntly; "that is, I didn't know anything at all about the party myself until a little while ago. Miss Blake did it all. I don't know how in the world she ever happened to ask just the ones I wanted, though."
Ruth and Louie exchanged glances. Then they laughed.
"Well, if you didn't think of us," they said, "you wanted us, so it's nice of you all the same."
That broke the ice, and it wasn't five minutes before all three were sitting together and chatting as comfortably as if they had been on the most intimate terms of friendship for years, and it was only Nan's sense of her responsibility as hostess that dragged her away at last.
"Miss Blake will wonder where we are. Won't you come into the other room? Besides you can't enjoy being cooped up in this little corner when the fun is going on outside."
"Oh, but we do enjoy it!" protested Ruth. "It's giving us a chance to get acquainted with you. And we want you to promise us that you'll go skating with us day after to-morrow. Please do!"
"Of course we know how you skate," declared Louie, "and we'll be so proud to have such a champion in our club. Say you'll come! And don't hold it against us that we haven't asked you before."
Nan's heart leaped. "Why, I'll love to," she said with a frankness equal to Louie's own, adding in a tone quite new to her, "if Miss Blake will let me."
Grace Ellis and Mary Brewster lifted their eyebrows in surprise as the three girls appeared in the doorway, chatting so intimately and being so plainly on the best of terms.
"Dear me!" whispered Grace, "what's come over Lu and Ruth? They actually look as if they liked her."