"And my dress—" she hurried on.
"A rather plain white one," I suggested fearfully, for I apprehended trouble there as with the candy-boxes. "You see, he'll not like to find you with a dress which has lace all twisted and tortured across the front—doctors are such humane creatures."
"I'm just dying to see what he looks like!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing. "And I'm so much obliged to you."
"I hope you'll have a pleasant time with him," I started, when she looked at me in dismay.
"Oh, surely I'll see you again before he comes! Can't you come over a little later on, or maybe after I'm dressed—to see if I am fixed all right, and if the parlor looks swell?" Her big dark eyes held a flattering appeal.
"Why, of course! I'll be glad to get mother to run over there with me—just before time for him to come," and she gave my arm a gratified little squeeze and went away filled with charming anticipations.
As the mystic hour approached, mother and I threw crocheted things over our heads and started across the wide road which lay between the houses.
Drawing near the cottage we noticed a dim light bobbing about queerly just off the front porch, and mother clutched my arm in agony.
"Surely—surely they're not hanging Japanese lanterns out in honor of his coming!"
"Oh, I hope not," I responded, feeling not at all certain as to the course which Neva's enthusiasm might take. But as we clicked the gate and passed on into the yard we discerned the generous outlines of Mr. Tim Sullivan rising from a rickety, three-legged chair, which he had placed directly in front of Mrs. Sullivan's nasturtium frame. This frame was but a poor skeleton affair, having been built in the yard early in the summer for the flowers to clamber up on, but the fall of the leaf was approaching, and the flowers had refused to clamber.