Bess read the telegram eagerly. “Oh, joy! Then she should reach here tomorrow! I wonder if I can ever wait so long!”
How she flew about during the early afternoon hours, making preparations for her friend’s reception! Her dainty room, all fresh and clean, was at last given the finishing touches, and she stood back near the doorway with her pretty head perked on one side, like a saucy wren’s, and her hands folded tightly together behind her. A critical eye scanned every article in the room, and as it swept the mirror it caught sight of a very flushed face with a frame of soft, brown hair that had rebelled at longer being confined beneath the little white dust cap. An involuntary laugh escaped from the girl’s lips as she saw the disheveled reflection, but almost instantly her merry countenance changed to an expression of seriousness, as she suddenly remembered that she had promised to give Dave Davis his answer today. Even then she heard some one approach, and running to the open window she looked through the curtain to see who the visitor was.
“Oh! but he is splendid—I never saw before how tall and great he really is! How red his cheeks are today; how brown his eyes are! Oh! I never noticed before that he had such lovely hair—and feet—and—” ran tumultuously through her mind. She was looking at her lover through different glasses now, and saw with other eyes than before.
“Yes, little Mother,” she called hastily, in response to a gentle tap at her door, “please say that I shall be down presently.”
Would her hair never go up properly? Such thumbs for fingers! Where on earth were her shoes? Everything else was out of place!
“I will put on my ‘dear’ little dress,” she thought, as she drew from its corner her treasure. Pale yellow crepe, soft, silken, crepy, with knots and loops of brilliant orange-colored velvet. In her hair she fastened a tiny golden butterfly, whose gauzy wings swayed with her every movement. Tiny golden slippers peeped from beneath her gown, and amber beads gleamed through the folds of lace about her throat. How the gown recalled the only time she had worn it, one night at a musicale when she had sung Nevin’s Mon Desir.
“I think that my riding togs feel more comfortable, after all,” she thought, as she surveyed herself once more in the long mirror, before going into the library.
Her silken petticoats rustled and swished as she descended the stairs, as if they fain would silence the beatings of her heart. She halted for a moment before the half-open door, nervously wiping her lips with a dainty handkerchief. Then she stepped calmly into the room.
Davis arose and started eagerly forward, but stopped abruptly as he beheld the delightful picture which she made. Neither spoke for an instant, as each gazed directly into luminous brown eyes.