“What shall we wear?” asked Julie who scrambled after her sister, shedding her wet things as she went.
“I got out your light silks, dearie,” came from Bridget.
“Do you suppose we ought to wear hats?” This from Hester, who was wishing they had planned their costumes the night before.
“Perhaps we ought,” ruefully. “Good gracious! I haven’t any—not a small one, Hester.”
“A trifle inconvenient, isn’t it? I might lend you the rose toque I bought in Paris.”
“Indeed you won’t, it exactly matches your gown and you look dear in it. I’ll wear a bow in my hair or something.” A bow, to Julie, always filled any discrepancy.
Hester arrested her in the act of trying this effect before the mirror and sat her down brusquely in a chair.
“Give me that bow,” she commanded, “and keep still. _I’ll make a hat on your head!_ Bridget, you get down her picture hat quick, and rip off the tips and the band of jet and some lace and we’ll fix her up in a jiffy!”
It was a wonderful creation—just a bit of lace and jet and ribbon with never a stitch in it, all fastened with hairpins to Julie’s curly head. Two white ostrich tips stood up saucily at the side, a few violets were coquettishly stuck in the back and the effect was immensely modish and becoming.
“Hold your head high all the evening and don’t toss it about for your life!” warned Hester. “If you do, the whole thing will fall to pieces.”
“That’s a cheerful prospect,” commented Julie, surveying herself in the glass. “Can’t you put in more hairpins?”
“You’ve got about a million now.” Hester’s imagination never failed her.
“Shure you look beautiful, Miss Julie, dear,” said Bridget, “and it ain’t goin’ to come to pieces—Miss Hester’s only teasin’ yer.”
Five minutes later they were rolling through the storm in Mrs. Lennox’s brougham.
“Hester,” whispered Julie from the depths of her luxurious corner, “_I_ never tramped out in the wet to-night to deliver a club supper, did you?”
“Certainly not,” squeezing her hand hard, “who ever heard of such a thing!”
Something very like a tremor of nervous excitement pervaded the girls as their names were announced on the threshold of Mrs. Lennox’s drawing-room. Their entrance attracted immediate attention. Mrs. Lennox received them as Mrs. Lennox would, with most charming cordiality, yet not too pronounced lest they be made to feel that their coming was not a matter of common occurrence. She made a mental note of the fact that her protégés had never looked prettier and was immensely pleased with their poise and perfect self-possession under what she knew must be for them something of an ordeal. If she could have looked into Julie’s heart she would have discovered a shyness in coming among these people that amounted to positive pain; but who would ever have suspected it from that smiling exterior and that proud tilt of the head?