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[Illustration: THE MOONLIGHTED FIGURE BY THE LILY POND. _Dorothy's House Party._]
XVII THE STORY OF THE WORM THAT TURNED 229
Dorothy sat up in bed and looked about her. For a moment she did not realize where she was nor how she came to be in such a strange and charming room. Then from somewhere in the distance sounded a merry, musical voice, singing:
"Old Noah of old he built an ark-- One more river to cross! He built it out of hickory bark-- One more riv----"
The refrain was never finished. Dorothy was at the open window calling lustily:
"Alfy! Alfy Babcock! Come right up here this very, very minute!"
"Heigho, Sleepy Head! You awake at last? Well, I should think it was time. I'll be right up, just as soon as I can put these yeller artemisias into Mis' Calvert's yeller bowl."
A fleeting regret that she had not waked earlier, that it was not she who had gathered the morning nosegay for Mrs. Betty's table, shadowed the fair face of the late riser; but was promptly banished as the full memory of all that happened on the night before came back to her. Skipping from point to point of the pretty chamber she examined it in detail, exclaiming in delight over this or that and, finally, darting within the white-tiled bathroom where some thoughtful person had already drawn water for her bath.
"Oh! it's like a fairy-tale and I'm in a real fairy-land, seems if! What a dainty tub! What heaps of great soft towels! and what a lovely bath-robe! And oh! what a wonderful great-aunt Betty!"
A moisture not wholly due to the luxurious bath filled Dorothy's eyes, as she took her plunge, for her heart was touched by the evidences of the loving forethought which had thus prepared for her home-coming before she herself knew she possessed a birthright home. Of her past life the reader if interested may learn quite fully, for the facts are detailed in the two books known as "Dorothy's Schooling," and "Dorothy's Travels."