“How do you know I wouldn’t?” demanded the visitor, who was standing in the doorway, with one hand behind him.
“Because I know you wouldn’t; it isn’t a boy’s game at all.”
“Well, I think you might tell me what it is, anyway,” said Paul, rather offended, and Molly, who had noticed the parcel in her friend’s hand, hastened to say soothingly:
“There isn’t any harm in telling him; I don’t believe he’ll laugh. We’re having a make-believe party, Paul.”
“What’s a make-believe party?”
“Why, you see,” Daisy explained, “this is Dulcie’s birthday, and we wanted to do something a little different from ordinary days. Of course Grandma wouldn’t let us have a real party, so we’re having an imaginary one, and all the people who come to it are make-believes.”
Paul laughed.
“That’s the funniest party I ever heard of,” he said. “I say, let me play, too.”
Dulcie and Daisy looked doubtful, but Molly pleaded, and in the end the others consented, after exacting a promise from Paul not to laugh, and never to let the grown-ups know how silly they had been.
“We pretend this is the parlor,” said Molly. “We are all dressed in party dresses. Mine is pink silk, with white dotted muslin over it. There’s an imaginary piano over there by the window, and a man is playing dance music on it. Dulcie stands here by the door, and shakes hands with people when they come in. I announce their names, and everybody brings her a present. I’ll show you how we do it.” And, turning her head in the direction of the open door, Molly announced in a good imitation of “Grandma’s company voice”: