Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/121

 has agreed to do. Later in the day, however, I learned that her husband had unexpectedly arrived in a hydroplane, with an officer in the naval flying corps, and that he would stay over Sunday, which was Dorothy's birthday. We seldom make calls in our summer community, except, as we say, "on intimation." Accordingly I waited for an intimation. All day Saturday, to my increasing wonder, there was nothing but silence from His Excellency's household, and, in the phrase which high usage has now made classic, "damned little of that." But I quite anticipated a birthday party on Sunday—for Oliver Senior makes much of these occasions—and probably a fire on the beach in the evening, with the latest gossip and best stories of the city. There was no party, and there was no fire.

On Monday I went down my path to the mail boxes with acute curiosity. The carrier's Ford had apparently broken down on the mountain, for he was nowhere in sight. I found Cornelia sitting alone on the bench under the elm; the other pilgrims, weary of waiting, had scattered along the marshy lakeside in search of lady's-slippers, which were abundant this year. She was all in white, and she sat with her bronze