"Ice-cream. If I do any baking I'll be too hot to look nice. Treasure, you run over to Wilcot's and get a quart of milk and a pint of cream and a half pint of whipping cream, and Rosalie you call up the ice company and have them leave a dime's worth of ice on the first delivery without fail, and I'll freeze it first thing. And, Rosalie, I leave the salad entirely to you."
"I will go to Benson's after school and get some flowers," said Treasure. "Mrs. Benson is always glad to give me the carnations that are not fresh enough to sell, but too good to throw away. And we can pick out the best ones."
"Isn't that grand? Won't father be pleased?"
This brought forth a prolonged and heated discussion of ribbons and gowns, for father had said to look their sweetest and act their dearest--and being girls, they knew the latter was impossible except when the former had been accomplished. Finally all was arranged, and the dresses were laid out nicely on their various beds, and Treasure was given a quarter to buy a new blue ribbon because she got oil on the old one sticking her head under the car to see what father was doing. And the girls rushed excitedly to school, to tell their friends carelessly that they had to hurry home to-night and could not stop to study Latin en masse, for "Father has invited a perfectly enormous author and psychologist and all that to dinner." And although none of them had a very clear idea what kind of a psychologist he was, or what he did, or why he was so perfectly enormous, the very meagerness of their information added luster to his halo.
The table that night was a dream of loveliness, and the girls had everything ready and were up-stairs taking a last final reconnoiter of their physical charms when they heard their father greeting the perfectly enormous guest.
They filed down breathlessly, eyes bright with anticipation, their hearts palpitating with the unwonted glory of it. And then--
"Why, it is only the Curious Cat," ejaculated Zee.
"Mr. Wizard," gasped Doris. "Father, you knew it all the time."
"Well, I am glad my girls have been encroaching on your hospitality, Mr. MacCammon, for otherwise we might not have the privilege of extending ours to you now."