“Billy! I’ll remember this afternoon of you to the longest day I live!” she said.
“Billy! We want you!” called Louise from the kitchen in a smothered voice. Winona would have gone, too, for she was sure she heard giggles, but just at this moment Clay came in, and his inability to understand why he shouldn’t add a wide red cheese-cloth sash to his white apron drove everything else out of her head. By the time she had argued him out of it the others were back, suspiciously grave.
“Not here yet!” sighed Louise. “I feel as if I couldn’t wait to have them taste my stuffing! Let’s go into the living-room and sing, or go out back and play tag, or something.”
“Dar dey is!” shouted Clay, running to the window.
The rest rushed, too, and looked over his woolly head.
“A big one and a little one and a middle-sized wife, like the Three Bears,” commented Winona. “They’re coming in by the front way. Oh——”
That was because the fritter-sauce boiled over just as the guests were ushered in. Both the girls forgot their manners, and ran to the kitchen to rescue it. So only Tom and Billy were in the living-room to be introduced.
“My wife and daughter will be here presently,” said Mr. Merriam, who had evidently forgotten that Mrs. Merriam was expected to stay away till about nine. “Tom, will you run up and tell your mother and Winona that our friends are here?”
But even as he spoke Winona, a little breathless, but trained, psyche-knotted and eye-glassed, appeared in the doorway with Louise behind her. She came in with an air of dignity which her mother could not have bettered, and greeted her guests regally, in her excitement forgetting to wait for an introduction.
Not so Tom.