CHAPTER EIGHT
“AND ADD TO THESE RETIRED LEISURE, THAT IN TRIM GARDENS TAKES HIS PLEASURE.”
Mary and Win were walking slowly over to Mr. and Mrs. Moulton’s, discussing the coming party with immense seriousness, at least on Mary’s part. Win could not be induced to regard it as of as much importance as she did.
“Mary,” he said, “it’s precisely here: you give a party; you do your best to make it a pleasant party, to both sides, hosts and invited; you either succeed, or you don’t—most likely you neither quite succeed nor quite fail. And when the next full moon comes around it won’t make tuppence worth of difference how it came out. That’s the way I look at it, and it’s the right way to look at it, not because it’s my way, but because it is! This won’t be different from all other Vineclad parties.”
“Mercy, yes, it will!” cried Mary. “Mother hasn’t been at the others.”
“Not since you remember parties, nor I, for that matter, but she has been here,” said Win. “She knows what to expect, and if Vineclad doesn’t remember her, all the better for Vineclad. It ought to be an interesting party to the town, because it has her to wonder over beforehand, and to see at the time. Your guests are sure to enjoy it. Whether Lynette does, what she’ll think of it, I don’t know.”
“But I can guess,” sighed Mary. Then they both laughed.
“Mary’s come to be braced up, Mrs. Moulton,” announced Win, when they had been greeted by both Mr. and Mrs. Moulton, and after Mark Walpole, with a shining, joyous face, had brought for Mary the low chair she liked, and placed it beside her guardian.
“It’s pleasanter within to-night, my dear,” Mrs. Moulton said. “I think there’s a heavy dew. What is wrong, child, that you need bracing?”
“Nothing wrong, Mrs. Moulton, and I need encouraging, not really bracing; that’s Win’s exaggeration. I—we’ve got to give a party.”