“Oh, thunderation, maybe so! Give it back,” the judge replied, taking the note and adding as a P. S.: “Bring your father and mother, of course.”
“I don’t know what Susan will say when the three walk in. She didn’t s’pose they were invited. She don’t fancy ’em any more than I do,” he said; but Fred didn’t hear him.
He was half way down the stairs with the note, which seemed to him almost an insult, it was so crisp and short. But if any one could smooth it over, he could, and he meant to do it. He did not care a picayune whether Mr. and Mrs. Grey accepted or not. He wanted Louie, and he meant to have her, and he wouldn’t tell Herbert where he was going, for fear he would insist upon going himself. “I’ll tell him afterwards that I was doing him a favor and giving him a surprise,” he thought, as he walked rapidly in the direction of Mr. Grey’s house.
CHAPTER VIII
LOUIE AND FRED
Louie was very tired, and after telling her mother what had taken place at the bank, she went to bed, for her head was aching slightly and she wished, if possible, to forget the exciting scene through which she had passed. A quiet sleep, followed by a bath, refreshed her, and in a pretty white wrapper she was sitting at the end of the piazza, covered with woodbine, which sheltered it from the sun. Her eyes were closed, and she was nearly asleep again when Fred’s step, coming rapidly up the walk and on to the piazza, roused her. Before he touched the bell he saw her and went toward her, offering his hand and hoping she was not suffering any bad effects from her efforts of the morning.
“Only tired, that’s all,” she said, feeling chagrined at being caught by Fred Lansing en deshabille, as she fancied her loose wrapper to be.
She did not guess how the young man was admiring her in it, and thinking it the most becoming dress she could have worn, with its flowing sleeves, which showed her arms every time she moved them.
Bringing a chair to her side, he told her why he had come, giving her the judge’s note, and drawing a good deal upon his imagination as he dwelt upon the pleasure it would give them all to have her present. Mrs. White, he said, was very busy; and the judge had written for her—a little formal, to be sure, but she knew the judge and would make allowance. He was very grateful, very, for what she had done, or been the means of doing. They were all very grateful and wanted to see her and thank her personally. The party would not be a success unless she were present. They would send the carriage for her, and send her home.
This last was said as he fancied he saw in her signs of declining, and it did not occur to him that it sounded as if she alone were expected to go. She understood it, however, and believed the P. S. an afterthought, and resented it. Her father and mother were not wanted, and for a moment she resolved not to go. But something in Fred Lansing’s eyes and the tone of his voice, as he talked to her, won upon her and made her change her mind.
“I must ask mother,” she said at last; and just then her mother appeared, a good deal surprised at the sight of this elegant young man sitting close to her daughter, with his hand on the arm of her chair.