Helen anticipated, the young ladies of the town, her most intimate friends and former school-mates, came in a body that afternoon to see her. The reception formally opened in the great parlor down-stairs, but it was not many minutes before they all found themselves in Helen's chamber fluttering about and chattering like doves in their spring plumage.
“There's no use putting it off longer,” Ida Tarpley, Helen's cousin, laughed; “they are all bent on seeing your things, and they will simply spend the night here if you don't get them out.”
“Oh, I think that would look so vain and silly in me,” Helen protested, her color rising. “I don't like to exhibit my wardrobe as if I were a dressmaker, or a society woman who is hard up and trying to dispose of them.”
“The idea of your not doing it, dear,” Mary King, a little blonde, said, “when not one of us has seen a decent dress or hat since the summer visitors went away last fall.”
“Leave it to me,” Ida Tarpley laughed. “You girls get off the bed. I want something to lay them on. If it were only evening I'd make her put on that gown she wore at the Governor's ball. You remember what the Constitution's society reporter said about it. He said it was a poet's dream. If I ever get one it will be in a dream. You must really wear it to your dance, Helen.”
“My dance?” Helen said, in surprise.
“Oh, I hope I'm not telling secrets,” Ida said; “but I met Keith Gordon and Bob Smith in town as I came on. They had a list and were taking subscriptions from all the young men. They had already enough put down to buy a house and lot. They say they are going to give you the swellest dance that was eyer heard of. Bob said that it simply had to surpass anything you'd been to in Augusta or Atlanta. Expense is not to be considered. The finest band in Chattanooga has already been engaged; the refreshments are to be brought from there by a caterer and a dozen expert waiters. A carload of flowers have been ordered. It is to open with a grand march.” Ida swung her hands and body comically to and fro as if in the cake walk, and bowed low. “Nobody is to be allowed to dance with you who hasn't an evening suit on, and then only once. They are all crazy about you, Helen. I never could understand it. I've tried to copy the look you have in the eyes hundreds of times, but it won't have the slightest effect.”
“There's only one explanation of it,” Miss Wimberley, another girl, remarked; “it is simply because she really likes them all.”
“Well, I really do, as for that,” Helen said; “and I think it is awfully nice of them to give me such a dance. It's enough to turn a girl's head. Well, if Ida really is going to pull out my things, I'll go down-stairs and make you a lemonade.”