"It just came, and it's postmarked New York. Look at the size of the envelope. I wish Sim would answer!" Terry repeated peevishly.
"Of course, you could go up, you know," Arden suggested with a superior air.
Terry did not answer but tapped her foot impatiently, bringing into play a shining black patent-leather opera pump that was vaguely reflected in the polished floor beneath. Terry wore lovely shoes.
Arden took the letter and was examining it, front and back, feminine fashion. A leading jurist once said that if a woman was given a letter or any piece of paper she would, without fail, turn it over and look on the other side. Arden, however, was rewarded, for on the reverse, in large red letters, was the name "Rita Keene."
"It's from Dot's mother," exclaimed Arden. "I suppose it says Dot can't come. But I should think she'd be glad to have her daughter visit such lovely girls as we are." Premeditated sarcasm here.
"Are we lovely girls?" inquired a voice from the stair landing above. "Seems to me I heard a little shouting."
"Sim! Where were you? I've been shouting for ages!" Terry announced.
"I know. I was phoning. I just called Ellery's. I thought we could go for a ride through Jockey Hollow. It's such a nice day, and we have the marketing done and everything." Sim, a rather small light-haired girl, already dressed in riding clothes, was descending the stairs as she spoke.
"Open this letter first. It's addressed to you. From Dot's mother." Terry handed over the missive as Arden made this demand on Sim.
"You could have opened it," suggested Sim, carefully inserting a tiny shell-pink nail under the flap, in no hurry at all.
"It says," she began, "'My dear Miss Westover: I shall be most happy to have Dorothy spend the Christmas holidays with you. I am rehearsing in a new play and would have very little time to give her. I know you will enjoy yourselves. Cordially, Rita Keene.' That's all. Oh, no, it isn't, either. It says, also, that Dot will get here tomorrow on the eleven o'clock train. We'll meet her," Sim concluded.
"Will you ask her, in due time, of course, to take her turn at doing the marketing?" Terry wanted to know.
While Sim's parents were spending Christmas in the South, Arden, Terry, and Sim had been entrusted with the running of the big town house. Arden and Terry were Sim's guests over the holidays until it should be time to return to Cedar Ridge College, where they were freshmen. A last-moment idea had been to invite Dot Keene, also a freshman, to make one of the house party. Now, it appeared, Dot was coming.