If he had not been looking down at the grate, just then, instead of into his daughter’s face, he would have seen her start, and almost catch her breath over this suggestion. It was not that she was jealous of little Flossy, for whom her father had shown very special and tender regard ever since the prayer-meeting which he attended in her company, but it came to her with a sudden sense of the change that had fallen upon them. To think that they—the Erskines—should be making an attempt to have a social gathering like unto one that Flossy Shipley had planned!
“We couldn’t do the things that she did,” Ruth said, quickly. “The elements which we would have to bring together would be too incongruous.”
“No,” he answered, “not exactly like hers, of course, but something simple and informal. I thought your three friends would come, and Dr. Dennis, you know, and people of that stamp, who understand and will help us. Wouldn’t it be well to try to do something of the kind, daughter, or doesn’t the idea meet with your approval?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, drawing in her breath. “Yes, father, we must do something. I will try. But I hardly know how to commence. You know I am not mistress of the house now; it makes it difficult for me.”
“I know,” he said, and the expression of his face led his daughter instantly to regret that she had made such a remark. It was the life she lived at this time—saying words, and regretting that she had done so. They went on, however, perfecting the arrangements for the social gathering. There had occurred to Ruth an instant trouble in the way, which was that ever-present one in the American woman’s life—clothes.
“We can not hasten this thing,” she said. “There will need to be some shopping done, and some dress-making—that is, I should think there would need to be.”
She corrected herself, and the embarrassment involved in the fact that she was not the mistress of the new comers presented itself. Suppose they chose to think they had clothes enough, and proposed to appear in any of the ill-made, badly-selected materials which seemed to compose their wardrobe! If they were only two children, that she might shut up, in a back room up-stairs, and turn the key on outsiders until such time as they could be made presentable, what a relief it would be!
Evidently her father appreciated that embarrassment.
“I tried to arrange that matter before I came home,” he said. “I furnished money and suggested as well as I could; but it didn’t work. I hardly know what was the trouble. They didn’t understand, or something. Ruth, what can you do about it? Is there any way of managing?”