“Please go, mother. Please!”
Virginia smiled at her eagerness. “Of course you’ll come, Mrs. Murphy. My name’s Virginia—Virginia Hunter. Let me help with your satchel, please. Come on, Mary.”
With one hand she helped Mrs. Murphy with the satchel, while she gave the other to Mary, and they started up the hill—Virginia never once thinking that her new friends would not be as welcome guests as those who were often bidden to The Hermitage, Mary, untroubled by conventions and happy at the thought of supper, Mrs. Michael Murphy, secretly troubled, but compelled to snatch at any hope of work.
“You’re not from these parts, I take it from your talk,” Mrs. Murphy remarked as they neared the campus.
“No, I’m from Wyoming. It’s a long way from here.”
“You’re sure—I’m afraid—the ladies at your cottage mightn’t like Mary and me coming this way.”
“Please don’t think that, Mrs. Murphy,” Virginia reassured her. “We’re always allowed to invite guests to supper. It’s quite all right, truly.”
But Mrs. Murphy in her secret heart was not assured. She looked really frightened as they neared The Hermitage; but Virginia, talking with Mary, did not notice, nor did she heed the astonished and somewhat amused looks of the girls whom they passed.
The supper-bell was ringing just as they opened the door, and stepped into the living-room. Mary and Anne were at the piano, and Virginia beckoned to them, and introduced her new friends. The surprised Mary and Anne managed to bow and smile; and were frantically searching for topics of conversation, when the girls began to come down-stairs, just as Miss Wallace, with Miss King, who was staying to supper, opened the door of Miss Wallace’s room.
Poor Mrs. Michael Murphy was perhaps the most uncomfortable of them all, for the others were mainly surprised. The girls stared, Imogene and Dorothy giggled audibly, Miss King looked puzzled, Miss Wallace sympathetic. Virginia could not understand the manifest surprise, mingled with disapproval, on the faces around her. Could she have done anything wrong? They certainly would not think so, if they knew.