“I don’t see any objection,” she said presently. “I suppose that would be more fun than having them all come here?”
“O, heaps more,” cried Hannah. “It would be the jolliest kind of a lark.”
“Would the Board be willing?” suggested Alice.
“I’m sure of that,” said Catherine. “Algernon will be the hardest to persuade, for he feels as though the library were almost holy ground, but I’ll interview him at once.”
The telephone was kept busy for the next half-hour; 274 by its means everything was arranged, and every one notified, and the girls went to work making preparations for the supper. Polly and Dot came over in the afternoon and the time slipped quickly by, trunk-packing and sandwich-making being mingled in what seemed to the doctor, some of the time, an almost hopeless jumble. At last the sounds of talk and laughter and running up and down stairs ceased. The boys had arrived to carry baskets, and a rain-coated procession tramped gayly off, waving good-bys now and then to the two doctors standing in the window.
“It hardly seems as though Catherine could be the same girl,” said her father. “She is so eager and full of fun.”
“But she keeps her quaint sweet dignity all the same,” answered Dr. Helen softly. “She will never lose her characteristic charm, and it is such a comfort to have her well enough to wish to eat a cold supper in that bare little room!”
“Can’t they heat the place?” asked Dr. Harlow sharply.
“O, yes,” his wife assured him, “and they have all solemnly promised me to dry their skirts as soon as they get there! Hannah always contrives to get into puddles.”
“She’s not much changed,” chuckled the little doctor. “Her language is as funny now and then as Frieda’s. She told me they were going to 275 relegate themselves on watermelon this evening!”