"I don't know whether Trix will be of the same mind when the time comes," said Ruth, firmly.
Agnes pouted. "It's just mean of you," she said. "Of course she will want us to go." While Agnes was "spoons" with a girl, she was always strictly loyal to her. She could not possibly see Trix Severn's faults just now.
They arrived at the farmhouse and found a crowd already assembled. There was a great deal of talking and laughter, and while Neale stood chatting with some of the boys in the hall, Ruth and Agnes came to him for their slippers.
"Sure!" said the boy, producing the newspaper-wrapped bundle he carried. "Guess I'll put on my own pumps, too."
He unrolled the parcel. Then a yell of derision and laughter arose from the onlookers; instead of three pairs of dancing slippers, Neale produced two pairs of half-worn and lime-bespattered shoes belonging to the masons who had repaired the old Corner House chimney!
"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth, while the young folk about them went off into another gale of laughter.
"Well, it wasn't my fault," grumbled Neale. "Aggie went after the bundle."
"Shouldn't have left them right there with the masons' bundle--so now!" snapped Agnes.
Now, Trix Severn had maneuvered so as to get the very first dance with Neale O'Neil. Among all the boys who attended the upper grammar grades, and the High, of Milton, the boy who had been brought up in a circus was the best dancer. The older girls all were glad to get him for a partner.
Time had been when Trix sneered at "that circus boy," but that was before he and the two older Corner House girls had saved Trix from a collapsing snow palace back in mid-winter.
Since that time she had taken up with Agnes Kenway as her very closest chum, and she had visited the old Corner House a good deal. When Agnes and her sister arrived at the party on this evening, with Neale as escort, Trix determined to have at least _one_ dance with the popular boy.
"Oh, Neale!" she whispered, fluttering up to him in her very nicest way, "Ruth and Agnes will be half an hour primping, upstairs. The music is going to strike up. Do let _us_ have the first dance."
It was the moment later that the discovery was made of the masons' shoes in the bundle he carried under his arm.