“Have they come?” she demanded breathlessly. “Ada took so long dressing I was dreadfully afraid they might get here before she was ready.”
“No, they haven’t come yet,” said Dora, glancing up from the Evening World which she had borrowed from the elevator-boy, “but they’ll be here soon now. I told them not to come before eight.”
“You are sure they got your postal, aren’t you?” inquired Gretel, anxiously.
“Oh, they got that all right,” responded Dora, with so much conviction that Gretel felt very much relieved.
“I think,” she said, gravely, “that the best way will be to have the music first and the refreshments afterwards. That’s the way Father always did. He said people never liked to play or sing right after eating.”
“Oh, you needn’t bother about that,” said Dora. “Lillie’d sing just as good on a full stomach as on an empty one. She’s an awful eater, anyway, and so’s Peter. I never saw two kids that can stuff the way those two can. But, look here, hadn’t you better keep one of those cream-puffs for yourself? You didn’t have very much in the way of supper.”
Gretel shook her head resolutely.
“I wouldn’t eat one for the world,” she protested. “Mrs. Marsh says it isn’t good for people to eat too much, and Father and I were often rather hungry the day after he had had company to supper. We never minded, though, and Father said he would so much rather be hungry than not be hospitable. Oh, there’s the bell! It must be Lillie and Peter.”
It was Lillie and Peter. Dora went to open the door, and when she returned she was accompanied by two guests; a girl of thirteen, in a green plaid dress, and wearing two long pigtails hanging down her back, and a boy of eleven, with very red hair, and so many freckles, that Gretel regarded him with a kind of fascinated horror. She was sure he was the very plainest boy she had ever seen in her life.
“Here they are,” announced Dora, proudly, as she ushered in the visitors; “this is my sister Miss Lillie Grubb, and this is my brother Peter Grubb. Miss Gretel Schiller.”