"Why, that's a great idea, pretty Poll!" Happie approved her. "There isn't time—yes, we'll make time! Hurry up, Gretta; don't stop to polish that glass another minute! Come on up-stairs, and let's whisk through our work there in a jiffy. Then we'll make sights of ourselves with all the old things we can find, and we'll put a big cambric collar on Dundee, and a white ribbon on Dorée, and we'll all sing—what on earth is the best thing to sing when they arrive?"
"Hail to the Chief," suggested Margery.
"Who knows the tune?" demanded Happie. "No, that won't do. What's the best tune? I'll make up words for it; there's no reason why Laura should have a family monopoly of Odes on Great Occasions."
"John Brown's Body—The Battle Hymn of the Republic—is the best tune I know when you want an awful noise, yet one that has a ring in it," said Bob.
"Right you are, my Bobby!" cried Happie. "There's nothing else has the swing and rush of that air. Let's see!" She began to hum the air rapidly as she switched the cover off the dresser in Bob's room, which both the Gordons were to share with him. "This will do!" she announced. "Give me something to write on; lend me your pencil, Bob!" She snatched up a box cover, scribbled hastily for a few moments, scratching out at intervals, but not much, and when she had finished read her effusion to the others.
"You're all right, Happie!" said Bob with as much heartiness in his commendation as the Academie Française could have shown in crowning a poem, if with less elegance. "You sing that when we drive up, the whole crowd of you in a row, and you'll make a hit. Now I've got to hurry off and harness, or I'll keep them waiting."
An hour later the hit was made. Margery and Gretta were almost of equal height; they headed the line, Margery in a sheet and pillow case costume, like a ghost; Gretta attired in a bright blue wrapper, with a patchwork quilt worn as a shawl, and her pink sunbonnet on her head, hastily trimmed with all sorts of artificial flowers in various stages of nearly falling off. Happie was a bride, pinned into window curtains, and with an old lace curtain for an impressive veil that trailed two feet, at the least, behind her. Laura wore a long velvet skirt of her mother's, over which she had draped a diaphanous blue scarf, and this festive costume ended in a full evening dress waist, which bore a suspicious resemblance to an old shirt waist, with the neck and sleeves cut out. But Laura flattered herself that her costume, at least, was impressive; she was reluctant to appear grotesque, even for fun.
Polly's round and serious face was the only thing visible above a great coat of fur which had been discovered in Miss Bradbury's closet, and which enveloped plump Polly from head to heels. Penny wore one of Margery's discarded dancing gowns which had not survived the summer at Bar Harbor. Over it Margery had pinned a Martha Washington kerchief, and without plan or seeking the result hoped for by Laura had been attained for Penelope—she was as picturesque as possible.
Don Dolor came up the driveway with a flourish. It proved him of a settled and sane mind that he did not rear or plunge as he faced this graduated line of funny figures, with beautiful Dundee in the front rank, waving his plume-like tail, and smiling with distended jaws as he barked wildly over a wide collar of white cambric, which he wore around his neck like a harlequin.
Miss Bradbury beamed at the group, evidently very glad to see her family again, from her collie up—or down, for Dundee had taken himself and his collar to the top step, whence he was barking more madly than before as Don Dolor stopped. Ralph and Snigs threw up their hats noiselessly; they would undoubtedly have cheered had not Bob warned them to be quiet, and to listen to their pæan of welcome. At the tops of their voices, but in harmony, for Gretta sang alto, and Laura was equal to sustaining a true tenor, the girls sang Happie's words to the air of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.