"It was a shame to go alone, on this simply perfect day," murmured the autoist, as she drew off one glove to tuck back under her motoring cap a rebellious lock of hair. "But I couldn't get a single one of the girls on the wire," she continued. "Oh, I just hate to go in, while there's a moment of daylight left!"
She stood on the porch, against a background of white pillars, facing the golden west, that every moment, under the now rapidly appearing tints of the sunset, seemed like some magically growing painting.
"Well, I can't stand here admiring nature!" exclaimed Cora Kimball, with a sudden descent to the commonplace. "Mother will be wanting that worsted, and if we are to play bridge tonight, I must help Nancy get the rooms in some kind of shape."
As Cora entered the vestibule, she heard a voice from the hall inside saying:
"Oh, here she is now!"
"Bess Robinson!" murmured Cora. "And she said she couldn't come motoring with me. I wonder how she found time to run over?"
Cora Hung open the door to confront her chum Bess or, to be more correct, Elizabeth Robinson—the brown-haired, "plump", girl—she who was known as the "big" Robinson twin—the said Bess being rather out of breath from her rapid exit from the parlor to the hall.
As might be surmised, it did not take much to put Bess out of breath, or, to be still more exact, to put the breath out of Bess. It was all due to her exceeding—plumpness—to use a "nice" word.
"Oh, Cora!" exclaimed Bess. "I've been waiting so long for you! I thought you'd never come! I—I—"
"There, my dear, don't excite yourself. Accidents will happen in the best of manicured families, and you simply must do something—take more exercise—eat less—did you every try rolling over and over on the floor after each meal? One roll for each course, you know," and Cora smiled tantalizingly as she removed her other glove, and proceeded to complete the restoration of her hair to something approaching the modern style—which task she had essayed while on the porch.