"Yes, thank you," said Happie. "She is going up to the Ark for a little while. Margery, you didn't know Aunt Keren told me after dinner that she meant to go up to Crestville in a few days to stay there, with Rosie to look after her. She thinks she will gain strength, even though it is winter."
"Oh, dear me!" shivered Margery. Then she added: "I'm sure it will do her good. I wish we could all go for a few days. Think of those mountains snowclad, and think of sleighing in that bracing air! Oh, I wonder—— You don't suppose we could have a party over Sunday in the Ark while she is there? All of us—and Mr. Gaston—and close the tea room for a day or two? Oh, if we could!"
"It would be good fun," admitted Happie. "Aunt Keren will never think of it, and we couldn't suggest it. I shall be able to help down there again, if Aunt Keren goes to the country."
"Ah, but you haven't heard my plan for a little jollification!" said Robert. "Andromeda, will you countenance a theatre party? I want to ask Mrs. Charleford and Edith, your mother, her two elder daughters, Bob, the elder of the Gordon boys, and—who else? Oh, Robert Gaston,—to see the Midsummer Night's Dream. I want to take two boxes, and get Mrs. Charleford and Mrs. Scollard each to chaperon one half our party, and have as good a time as we can. Why, let me see—Mrs. Charleford, Edith, two; your mother, you two girls, three; Bob, Ralph, and myself—eight. Why, we can easily take Laura and Snigs Gordon. Dear me, I forgot Gretta, though she is one of my first thoughts, because in the matter of play-going age counts before musical talent, so Gretta has prior claim over Laura. But even with her we can ask Laura and Snigs, for that is only eleven altogether, and we boys can stand up at the back. I want the two lower boxes on the left, if I can get them—but you haven't said whether or not you approve," Robert interrupted himself, amusedly watching the rapture in Happie's dimpling, tell-tale face which needed no speech to reveal her mind.
"It's a perfectly blissful plan!" she cried. "I never sat in a box in my life, and I always wanted to dreadfully. And I've been crazy to see the Midsummer Night's Dream; I know lots of it by heart. I love that play and the Tempest so very much. And we haven't had time—because of the tea room and all, to take Gretta about as I meant to. It is a beautiful plan. I'm ever and ever so grateful for my part of it. You really are very kind, Mr. Gaston."
Robert Gaston smiled, well pleased. Not being in the least dull he had read plainly Happie's mental attitude towards him, and he was sincerely sorry for her, thinking that he should not have liked an interloper to come to steal Margery away had he been Happie, and fully compassionating her foreboding pangs—which showed that Margery was not wrong in believing him fine and tender beyond the ordinary.
"It is not kind to be good to oneself, Miss Andromeda-Happie," he said. "Will you ask your mother about it? Or ask her to let me ask her?"
"Yes, I'll tell her that you want to see her," said Happie, slipping away. Gretta's suggestion that Robert Gaston might want to read and talk to Margery alone oppressed her, in spite of her pleasure in the box party.
When Robert Gaston left the Patty-Pans that night he left "three perfected plans promising pleasure," Bob said as he shook hands. The tea room party for Washington's birthday was decided upon. This came first, as the holiday fell in the ensuing week. Then the party for the Midsummer Night's Dream early in the following week! Robert confessed that his own birthday followed Washington's in four days, and that he should like to keep it by having his party on the 26th, which was Tuesday, if he could. As far as the Scollards were concerned there was no objection to any date, unless it were to be a distant one, for which Laura would have been wholly unable to survive her impatience, and Happie was not less eager.
The third party was the crowning joy of that planful evening. Whether Aunt Keren had heard what Margery had said about the house party in the Ark there was no way of knowing—in Patty-Pans anything is more likely to be heard than not—but she came into the little parlor in her odd abrupt way just as Robert Gaston arose to go, saying: "Good-evening, Mr. Gaston. Sit down again and help me conspire."