“O, mother!” said Hazel, “you didn’t say that when you asked people, you know.”

“O, no!” said Mrs. Ripwinkley.  “That was when we went to stop a little while ourselves, without being asked.  Well, it was to please to let them come.  And all the ladies were at home, because it was only ten o’clock; and they all sent their love and compliments, and they were much obliged, and the little girls would be very happy.

“It was a warm June day; up Brier Street was a steep walk; down Hickory we were glad to keep on the shady side, and thought it was nice that Mrs. Bemys and Mrs. Waldow lived there.  The strings of our hats were very moist and clinging when we got home, and Laura had a blue mark under her chin from the green ribbon.

“Mother was in her room, in her white dimity morning gown, with little bows up the front, the ends trimmed with cambric edging.  She took off our hats and our pelisses,—­the tight little sleeves came off wrong side out,—­sponged our faces with cool water, and brushed out Laura’s curls.  That was the only difference between us.  I hadn’t any curls, and my hair had to be kept cropped.  Then she went to her upper bureau drawer and took out two little paper boxes.

“’Something has come for Blanche and Clorinda, since you have been gone,’ she said, smiling.  ‘I suppose you have been shopping?’ We took the paper boxes, laughing back at her with a happy understanding.  We were used to these little plays of mother’s, and she couldn’t really surprise us with her kindnesses.  We went and sat down in the window-seat, and opened them as deliberately and in as grown-up a way as we could.  Inside them were two little lace pelerines lined with rose-colored silk.  The boxes had a faint smell of musk.  The things were so much better for coming in boxes!  Mother knew that.

“Well, we dressed our dolls, and it was a great long sunshiny forenoon.  Mother and Luclarion had done something in the kitchen, and there was a smell of sweet baking in the house.  Every now and then we sniffed, and looked at each other, and at mother, and laughed.  After dinner we had on our white French calicoes with blue sprigs, and mother said she should take a little nap, and we might go into the parlor and be ready for our company.  She always let us receive our own company ourselves at first.  And exactly at four o’clock the door-bell rang, and they began to come.

“Caroline and Fanny Dayton had on white cambric dresses, and green kid slippers.  That was being very much dressed, indeed.  Lucy Waldow wore a pink lawn, and Grace Holridge a buff French print.  Susan Bemys said her little sister couldn’t come because they couldn’t find her best shoes.  Her mother thought she had thrown them out of the window.

“When they all got there we began to play ‘Lady Fair;’ and we had just got all the ‘lady fairs,’ one after another, into our ring, and were dancing and singing up and down and round and round, when the door opened and mother walked in.