“I’m not dressed, nor ready,” protested Will.
“Then get ready at once; and while you’re about it I’ll drive Flo over to the grove. Jump in, dear.”
Flo readily complied with this request, for it was a great treat to ride in the pony cart; so in a moment they were whirling up the lane as fast as the fat little pony could prance, and Will, pleased indeed to be invited to the big house, went in to dress himself carefully for the occasion.
By the time he was ready, and had kissed his mother good-bye, the cart was back again; so he took Flo’s place beside Annabel and was driven slowly away.
They had a good many things to talk over, it seemed; all about Annabel’s new boarding school and Will’s old high school; and about their mutual friends in the village, and the new book Annabel had sent Will to read, and about the mushroom business, in which the girl was keenly interested, and a good many other subjects.
So the pony had time to get new breath into it’s pudgy body, while the cart moved leisurely up this road and down that lane until at last they turned into the grounds of the big house.
Will was warmly greeted by Theodore and Mary Louise, as well as the younger children, and he first admired Ted’s gray uniform, all covered with brass buttons, and then turned to gaze shyly at the slim, beautiful girl whom he hesitated, because she was “such a young lady,” to address familiarly as Mary Louise.
Mr. Williams, too, was present, happy to have his children all beside him once more, and the great steel manufacturer was so jolly a companion, and entered so heartily into the amusements of the young folks, that not one of them felt any restraint in his presence, but grieved when he left them.
The big dinner which Nora had prepared for this occasion was one of the merriest functions the establishment had ever known, and Fanny, the waitress, and Thomas, the butler, afterwards compared notes and figured that the party had remained nearly two hours at the table—which was surely long enough to satisfy the most vigorous appetite. But only those just home from boarding-school know what it is to sit down to a good home dinner; and there was so much to talk about that they could not be eating every minute, either.
Following this evening, which Will long remembered, came two weeks of constant excitement, during which coasting and sleighing parties, dances in the evenings and an old-fashioned “hay-ride” to a neighboring town, kept the young folks of Bingham busy as bees. Will couldn’t be present at all these gaieties, because the fires had to be kept going in the heater, and he insisted that Egbert should have a share in the season’s fun. But Egbert was little inclined to social pleasures, from many of which his infirmities naturally barred him, so that Will participated in a good many of the amusements provided for the holidays.