"Mother always says try to make everybody glad they came, and that is all there is to entertaining. So I tried. Nice boys, aren't they? And the girls are nice, too; particularly Ethel and Julia. I think they felt a little snubby at first, but they never showed their inside feelings a bit, and that's pretty hard for a girl, for when she feels snubby inside her nose goes up on the outside."
After supper there were more games and Dumb Crambo formed an edifying feature of the entertainment, but the party came to an end at length as all good things must in time. Everybody went away in high spirits. The boys expressed their pleasure in unqualified terms.
"It is the nicest time we ever had in Hazelnook," said Lyman, as the spokesman for the party. "Nobody else ever treated us as square as Brown has, and we are much obliged to her for it."
This was not an elegant adieu, perhaps, but it was sincere.
"Lyman," whispered the unblushing recipient of this praise, "don't forget to let me know about the ball game to-morrow; I'll get out, some way."
When the last guests were gone Gay and the aunts went into the drawing-room to talk it over.
"Pretty jolly time, wasn't it?" asked Gay, with a smile of satisfaction.
"The best of it is that it will do both the boys and the girls good to be brought together," said Miss Celia, "and I doubt if it would have been done if you had not come to Hazelnook."
"Well, you see," said Gay, earnestly, "I can't see any sense in putting one kind of people in one lump and another in another and having them think that they're different kind of folks, because they aren't at all, as you can tell easily enough if you take one out of each lump and change them about?"
"You were a niece to be proud of to-day, May," said Miss Linn, who was gratified at her young relation's social success, and not disposed to discuss the laws governing society in general.