"Little girl! Well, your little girl designed this gown herself. I would n't have any fuss or frills about it; it's just plain and full and soft and clingy, and this sash of soft silk--is n't it a pretty, pale green?--feel--" She caught up a handful of the delicate fabric and crushed it in her hand, then smoothed it again, and it showed no wrinkles. "I 've put it on to match the dinner. I 've had it all my own way--Wilkins did just as I said--and it's all cool and green and springy. You 'll see."
"Where did you get these flowers?" Mr. Clyde touched the bunch of arbutus, that showed so delicately pink and white against the white of her dress and the green of her sash.
A wave of beautiful color shot up to the roots of the little crinkles of chestnut hair on her temples; she touched the blossoms caressingly. "I wrote March about this dinner-party, and how it was the first at which I had been hostess, and he wrote back and wanted to know what I was going to wear, and I told him--and this morning these lovely things came by mail all done up in cotton wool in a tin cracker-box, the kind Chi uses to put his worm-bait in, when he goes fishing. Are n't they lovely? And was n't March lovely to think of them, papa?"
"They are n't half as lovely as you are," said Mr. Clyde, earnestly, replying to half of her question only. "You are my unspoiled Hazel-blossom--" Then a sudden, intrusive thought caught and arrested his words. "Hazel Blossom," he repeated to himself, looking at her unconscious face as he uttered the last word, "Good heavens! Could such a thing be?"
"De Cun'le an' Mrs. Fenlick," announced Wilkins.
And when they were all seated at the table--the Colonel and Mrs. Fenlick, Doctor and Mrs. Heath, Aunt Carrie and Uncle Jo, the Masons and the Pearsells--with no candelabra to interfere with the merry speech and glances, with the light from the candles in the sconces shining softly on the exquisite napery, on the low bed of white tulips in the centre and the grace of the pale, green porcelain, with the tall Bohemian Romer-glasses before the plates--what wonder that Mrs. Fenlick pronounced it a "dream of beauty"?
When their guests had gone, Mr. Clyde turned to Hazel:--"I shall be glad to open the Newport cottage again, Birdie, with such a little hostess to help me entertain."
"The Newport house, papa!" Hazel exclaimed, a distinct note of disappointment sounding in her voice.
"Why not, dear? I thought of getting down there by the tenth; in fact, gave my orders to Mrs. Scott to begin packing to-morrow."
Hazel was evidently struggling with herself. She fingered the arbutus nervously; took them out of her belt; inhaled their fragrance. Then she looked up with a smile, although the corners of her mouth drooped and trembled a little:--