The Heart of Arethusa Part 20

Her face clouded. And then a truly dreadful thought intruded itself.

Perhaps she was not even expected at this Party; that may have been why she had not been called.

Her troubled grey eyes spelled something of this to Elinor, so she pulled a plump chair a little nearer to her own and patted it invitingly, just as Miss Asenath patted the couch for Arethusa to join her.

"It isn't a party, Arethusa dear," said Elinor. "Come over by us and be sociable and I'll tell you all about it."

She explained to Arethusa that it was just three years ago on the twenty-fifth of October (this very night) that she and Ross had first met each other, at a dinner at the Baronne de Braunecker's in Paris when she had been visiting the Baronne and Ross had come as a guest to the dinner given in her honor.

"I fell in love with her on the spot," interrupted Ross, "and I could hardly wait for morning so I could go back to call on her."

Arethusa flashed her father a brief smile of appreciation for this bit of information and proceeded to grow more and more enraptured with the whole affair as Elinor added to the narrative. They were celebrating the occasion of that meeting this evening, she continued. Ross had sent her the flowers, touching the cl.u.s.ter at her belt, for she had worn pink roses at the Baronne's dinner; and they were to have for this anniversary meal as many things as Elinor had been able to remember they had eaten together at the first one.

Arethusa's eyes sparkled.

What a darling idea! This keeping of the Anniversary of so Memorable an Occasion! Her romantic heart thought it came very near being more thrilling than a Real Party! It was a way of living after her own conception of life!

"But if I had known about it I could have dressed up, too. _I_ have a Party Dress!"

"You have plenty of time to go put it on, if you wish." Elinor smiled for the little air of pride with which the girl had announced her possession. "There's oceans of time for you to change. Dinner isn't until seven."

Arethusa bounded from her chair. "Oh, really ... may I?"

Elinor nodded. "Would you like me to help you?" she added.

But Arethusa was already halfway up the front stairs by the time she had finished her friendly offer.

She dived down into her trunk, recklessly pitching out and aside all those garments Miss Eliza had folded so carefully and placed into it as she had considered Arethusa would be needing them. For the one white dress Miss Let.i.tia had made for parties was far down towards the very bottom of the trunk. It is well that Miss Eliza did not see this unpacking!

Still further down, Arethusa lifted up a box she had put there herself, tucking it in when Miss Eliza had not been present to observe, and from it she drew that length of green ribbon which she loved. Unknown to her aunt, it had travelled all the way from the hollow tree to Lewisburg for Arethusa's adorning.

"I will _not_!" she said aloud, defiantly, as though Miss Eliza were actually present in person forbidding the tying-on of that decoration, "I will _not_ wear a blue ribbon! I will wear This!"

Then Arethusa, thus arrayed in her best, descended the stairs once more.

She crossed the library towards the two by the fire, this time stepping proudly in a consciousness of clothes, holding her head high. Her cheeks were adorably flushed, and her eyes were almost black under her long dark lashes.

The dress was very becoming, even if it were not of the accepted standards for formal evening wear. Miss Let.i.tia had "spre'd herse'f,"

so Mandy said, on that dress. It was a trifle sheerer than Miss Eliza had at first intended it to be, thanks to Miss Asenath's gentle persuasion; round in the neck and even a bit low, for with fingers that trembled in their excited daring Miss Let.i.tia had cut it down farther than the line Miss Eliza had indicated as modest and becoming. And then there was no way to fill it in.

But "'Thusa had such a pretty neck," said the guilty seamstress to herself; and what did an inch or so matter in the end?

In Arethusa's simple soul, even with her "love of gew-gaws," as Miss Eliza phrased it, there was no smallest room for envy. This white garment of hers had been bought and made for a party dress, and it was the most party "party dress" she had ever possessed; her mother's black gown was plainly a party dress also: therefore, to Arethusa's mind, they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the skirt for its tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

"I put on my Best Dress," she said happily, "because it was your Anniversary. I know Aunt 'Liza would say I should have put on my blue silk, but it's so dark, and it's not dress-up a bit."

Elinor and Ross exchanged glances, but forebore to smile at the "best dress." Somehow she appealed to them both more at this very moment than she had in any mood shown before.

Ross sprang from his chair and recklessly denuded a large bowl on the big mahogany table of most of its burden of pink roses, and gallantly presented them to his daughter to put in her green belt, so that she might also be wearing the Anniversary Flowers.

"For the Queen Rose in the rosebud garden of girls," he said, with a low, sweeping bow as he presented them, which enraptured Arethusa. And the words had a vaguely familiar sound, as of poetry. Arethusa adored poetry.

Yet the warm-hearted blossoms themselves, thought Ross, were really no more fresh and glowing than the girl whose fluttering fingers strove to tuck them in the ribbon around her waist just as Elinor had her cl.u.s.ter arranged.

"Bless her heart!" said Elinor to herself, as she noted Arethusa's little glance at the flowers she wore and the little effort at imitation. "And she shall have a real party frock to-morrow. The very prettiest I can find!"

When George, the African Butler, an imposing personage of almost unnatural blandness, a few moments later announced dinner as served, to Arethusa's view he appeared to be dressed for the Party also. She was gladder then than ever that she had gone up and changed her dress.

The round dining-table with its gleaming silver and gla.s.s, the tall, ivory-colored candles, burning without shades in silver candlesticks, and the huge centerpiece (of the Flowers of the Occasion) was far more of a picture than Arethusa had ever known such an ordinary thing as a dining-table to present. And all around the room were more roses, in bowls and tall vases, until it seemed a veritable bower of them, dimly lighted away from the candle glow by shaded sconces against the walls.

Arethusa drew a deep, sharp breath of ecstasy at all this loveliness.

She did not want to sit down in the chair George held for her at first, but just to stand and look, and look. At home, they ate at night under an oil lamp hanging by chains from the ceiling, and the supper table at the Farm had never, in all its existence as a supper table, been a fairy scene such as this. But Ross and Elinor were sitting down, and so almost unconsciously Arethusa slid into her own chair, still admiring.

She examined the silver articles at her place with interest. There seemed to be so many for only one person. Why did they put all their silver on the table this way at once? For it surely looked to Arethusa as if that was what had been done. It was very pretty, she admitted, but seemed curious. She made no audible comment, however, remembering that Miss Eliza had said that it was most ill-bred audibly to remark anything as curious seen in another person's house. Their ways might be strangely different, but it was never the part of a lady to allude to the fact.

Arethusa's bouillon gave her no real trouble. It had a familiar appearance and one ate soup with a spoon, even at the Farm. She selected the spoon among that brave array that invited selection spread so accommodatingly before her, which seemed to her to best fit the cup in size; and conscious now of the lack of that lunch she could not eat, for she was very hungry, she ate every bit of this first course with relish, even lifting the cup as she noticed Elinor do once very daintily, to drain it of its last drop. She longed for more, but it is never polite to ask for a second helping, when a guest.

The bouillon drunk, and the gold and white cups removed, came George bearing a large silver platter whereon reposed what Arethusa at first thought to be flowers of some description. But it seemed queer to cook flowers and serve them for food, as they seemed to be intended.

Arethusa did not like the appearance of those strange, spiky, dark-green things, and it made it very easy to remember one of Miss Eliza's earliest lessons that something must be left for the servants in the kitchen, and never to take everything on a dish, there being only three of these unknown objects on that platter, so she refused with unforced politeness when they came her way.

"Oh, come now," remonstrated Ross, "surely you want an artichoke!"

"Artichoke!" The name made Arethusa giggle.

"Try one," suggested Elinor, "for this is one of the things I happened to remember we had at our first dinner together."

Whereupon she changed her mind, servants or no servants in the kitchen, for Arethusa was Celebrating.

There was no spoon on the platter. There was nothing in the shape of implements to a.s.sist this thing over to her plate save a large, wide fork and a pancake turner. At least, it resembled a pancake turner. It was strange to see such use for one, and to help herself to food such as this and in this manner. It proved a bit awkward in the attempt. The artichoke, too, made it more awkward. It behaved like something alive, and hesitated for a second on the tip of the pancake turner, balanced uncertainly; then plunged to ignominy and darkness, under the table.

And Arethusa had made the n.o.blest of efforts to manage it!

She looked up quickly in Elinor's direction, braced for the reprimand.

Such an occasion would have proved the finest of grist for Miss Eliza's mill; but Elinor merely smiled kindly at the embarra.s.sed guest, and requested George to fetch Miss Arethusa another artichoke.

This one was retrieved in triumph.

But once on her plate, Arethusa eyed it distrustfully. How did she eat it, now that she had it? Did she cut it up before hand, or what? Which one of her many knives and forks did she use for it? Then her quick glance noted how Elinor peeled off a leaf, so she did the same.

"Like it?" from Ross, after her first mouthful.

Arethusa looked doubtfully at the artichoke. Recollections of Miss Eliza as to the criticism of food put before one, made her temporize.

"I know other things I've eaten that I like much better." She was perfectly courteous in manner, but her tone decidedly lacked in enthusiasm. Then she added, hastily, fearing that she might have offended by even this statement, "I may get used to it, if I eat enough of them. Aunt 'Liza says you can acquire tastes." She smiled at Ross apologetically. "I never saw one before, you know."

"You'll do, Arethusa," laughed Ross.

And Elinor smilingly told her that its eating was not at all compulsory, but Arethusa was game. When she celebrated, she celebrated with no half measure, so she finished her artichoke to the last bitter leaf, though she did not like that last leaf any better than she had the first.

But it would be most unfair to chronicle all of Arethusa's vicissitudes and mistakes during the course of that long dinner; her struggles with her strange mult.i.tude of table-ware, which had a propensity for disappearing decidedly odd, but to which Ross's own augmented supply might have given her a clue, had she looked more sharply near his plate, and the eating of dishes new to her and not always liked. For, new dishes or not, Arethusa partook with heartiness of everything that came her way; even to the tiny cup of coffee at the very end, with its baby spoon which had so enraptured her as like a doll's, and which had vanished mysteriously before she could use it so that George had had to bring another.