Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/473

1905.] a welcome as if she had been gone a week. But Hetty watched the clock feverishly as the hours slipped by.

“Nothing will happen,” she thought desperately. “Nothing will happen. They are all getting ready to come now.”

The early afternoon sped quickly. It was nearly three o’clock when her mother came upstairs, where Hetty was studying her lessons.

“Hetty,” she said, “I wish you would—why, child, what have you put on your best frock for?”

Hetty turned red, and the tears, so long kept back, sprang to her eyes.

“Oh, mother,” she began, half sobbing. “Somehow I never could tell you—”

But at this moment Emy and Omy dashed into the room, both talking at once and fairly bursting with importance.

“Hetty,” panted Emy, “’s a lot of girls downstairs, all dressed up—”

“And they say,” screeched Omy, drowning him out, “they ’ve come to Hetty’s party!”



“What in the world are you children talking about?” inquired their mother, in a vexed tone. Then, with sudden realization of Hetty’s words and her dress, “Hetty,” she said sternly, “did you know they were coming?”

“Y-yes, mother, I did,” sobbed—Hetty.

To Mrs. Macdonald, her Southern instincts and traditions of hospitality, that “yes” transformed the girls from simple school-girl comrades into the sacredness of “invited company,” with all its recognized rights.

“Boys,” she said, turning to the twins with swift decision, “go right down and tell the girls that Hetty will be there in a minute; I am just fixing her hair. And then you come back and get on your clean suits.”

The twins thumped down the stairs, proclaiming in piercing tones on each step: “Hetty ’s got a party! Hetty ’s got a party!”

“Now, Hetty,” said her mother, quietly, “tell me all about it, quickly, while I braid your hair. And, whatever you do, don’t cry.”

Hetty swallowed her tears, and, while her mother with quick, deft fingers braided her hair and tied on her best bows, stammered out