THE PARTY
Very early, on the morning of the day of the party, Nancy and Aunt Milly and B'lindy and Jonathan and Nonie and Davy and Peter Hyde, each, scanned a sunny, cloudless sky with relief and joy.
"Well, it isn't going to rain, anyway," each thought.
Even Miss Sabrina, lifting her shade slowly, felt her pulse beat more quickly as a sunbeam danced into her face. This day was a new day for Happy House; she could not count the years since a "party" had been given in her home; her old hands trembled now as she dressed hurriedly. "What if something goes wrong!" she thought. Had they forgotten anything?
A little later Nancy, standing with her arms full of girlish finery of thirty years ago, voiced the same fear to Aunt Milly.
"What if something should go wrong!" But there had been a giggle in her voice as she had said it. This was the most delightfully funny party she had ever known, and it was going to be the very jolliest, too.
Directly after breakfast Nonie had run home with the made-over white dress. She thought it much lovelier than velvet and in her joy over a pair of Nancy's slippers the child forgot her cherished dream of a train.
What Miss Milly should wear to the party was a matter that demanded much thought. "You see, I want you to look happy," Nancy explained to Aunt Milly. She had dragged down from the attic a little trunk in which, after the accident, many of Aunt Milly's girlish possessions had been packed. It was great fun taking them out and selecting from them what Aunt Milly should wear. There were not many things—compared to Nancy's own wardrobe it was pitifully small and spoke eloquently of the limited pleasures of Aunt Milly's girlhood.
"This will be lovely," Nancy held out a flowered silk. "And you can wear these darling beads. And this," picking out a shell comb, "in your hair. And I will send Jonathan over to Judson's for a bunch of their lovely roses. I know they have some!"
"But isn't this—queer—and out of date? I'm old now, Nancy!"