"Christopher had run to the automobile and now he come a-hopping back.
"'Robin!' he called. 'Aunt Eleanor says you haf to be in a dress by dinner, and it's now.'
"'Do come for dinner, Mr. Insley,' Mis' Emmons calls, as Robin and Christopher went to join him. 'We've got up a tableau or two for afterward. Come and help me be a tableau.'
"He smiled and shook his head and answered her. And that reminded me that I'd got to hurry like wild, as usual. It was most six o'clock then,—it always is either most six o'clock or most noon when I get nearest to being interested,—and that night great things was going to be going on. Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and the School Board and I was going to have a tableau of our own.
"But for all that I couldn't help standing still a minute and looking after the automobile. It seemed as bad as some kind of a planet, carrying Robin off for forever and ever. And I wasn't so clear that I fancied its orbit.
"'I've got a whole string of minds not to go to that party myself,' I says, meditative.
"But Insley never answered. He just come on around the Cadozas' house.