“Of course,” said Betty, speaking half absently. “Oh, Eira, how interesting it will be when he comes to-morrow! Do let us think what we can do to—to show everything to advantage. If we could persuade Francie to sing, for her voice is so lovely!”
“She never would,” said Eira, “not to any one like that, who is pretty sure to be a good judge, for she knows her voice is untrained. Why, she has never had a lesson in her life! Can’t we do anything about her dress, however? She always looks nice, perfectly nice, but almost too plain, too severe, as if she had retired from the world and was above such things as dress and looks.”
“Perhaps it’s just that that attracts him in her,” said Betty—“the difference, I mean, between her and the fashionable girls he is accustomed to.”
“Yes,” replied Eira, “up to a certain point that’s all very well, but no man would like to have a wife, however beautiful she was, who did not to some extent look like other people. Betty, how could we contrive to make her wear her own black silk blouse to-morrow? It is even more becoming to her than ours are, and a little handsomer. Don’t you remember her saying when we got them that hers mustn’t look too young? She is rather absurd about her age, for certainly she doesn’t look older than twenty-four at most.”
“I wonder how old Mr Littlewood is?” said Betty, thoughtfully: “I’m afraid not more than twenty-seven; and Frances is one of those people who would think it almost a crime to marry a man younger than herself.”
“We can easily keep off the subject,” said Eira. “Indeed, after he has left, I think we had better say very little about him, though we may go on planning all the time by ourselves, you know, how to help it on in every possible way, once he comes back again.
“Oh, Betty!” and she clasped her hands in excitement, “isn’t it nice to have something to make plans about?”
Somewhat to their surprise and still more to their satisfaction, the two girls found their sister, the next morning, much more amenable to their tactfully administered suggestions than they had anticipated.
“Yes,” she said simply, “I should like to make the room nice, and ourselves too, so that he may take as favourable an impression as possible back with him to his people and the other Morions, and you will be careful, Betty dear, won’t you, not to hoist your flag of war again?”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Betty, kissing her sister as she spoke. “I see now that I behaved idiotically, and I see too how kind he was to take it as he did.”