Her father and mother, with Mrs. Potts, had considerately disappeared.  Malcolm had gone down town; the ladies, wrapped in shawls, were gossiping in Mrs. Potts’s vaultlike chamber.  Lydia was moving about in the downstairs rooms.

“Oh, Martie, Rose telephoned,” Lydia said as her sister came in, “and she says that Mr. Rice and her mother say she must come up to-night, if it’s only for a little while.  She’s going to bring her violin.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Martie answered absently, sitting down to play “The Two Grenadiers” with great spirit.  “There’s some one now, Lyd!” she added in a half panic, as the doorbell rang.  Lydia, her colour rising suddenly, went to the door, raising her hand above as she passed under the gaslight to turn the lights to their full brilliancy.  The first arrival was Angela Baxter, with her music roll under her arm.  She kissed Lydia, and went upstairs with Sally.

Then there were other feet on the porch:  in came the German girls and Laura Carter, hooded in knitted fragile scarfs, and wrapped in pale blue and pink circular capes edged narrowly with fluffy eiderdown.  Elmer King, hoarsely respectful, and young Potter Street followed.  Martie, taking the girls upstairs, called back to them that she would send Len down.  While they were all in Lydia’s room, laying off wraps and powdering noses, Maude Alien came up, and “Dutch” Harrison’s older sister Kate, and Amy Scott, and Martie was so funny and kept them all in such roars of laughter that Sally was conscious of a shameless wish that this was what Monroe called a “hen party,” with no men asked.  Then they could have games, Proverbs and even Hide-the-Thimble, and every one would feel happy and at home.

When they went down Robert Archer, a quiet mild young man who was in the real estate business, had come; and he and Elmer and Potter were sitting silently in the parlour.  Martie and Sally and the other girls went in, and every one tried to talk gaily and naturally as the young men stood up, but there seemed to be no reason why they should not all sit down, and, once seated, it seemed hard to talk.  What Martie said was met with a nervous glimmer of laughter and a few throaty monosyllables.

Sally wanted to suggest games, but did not dare.  Martie, and indeed every one else, would have been glad to play Proverbs and Twenty Questions, but she did not quite like to begin anything so childish at a real dance.  She looked at the clock:  just nine.  The evening was yet young.

Suddenly Angela Baxter stopped murmuring to Lydia, and began to rattle a quick two step from the piano.  Robert Archer, sitting next to Martie, asked her at once to dance, and Potter Street asked Sally, but both girls, glancing self-consciously at their guests, declined, and the young men subsided.  So nobody danced the first dance, and after it there was another lull.  Then Martie cheerfully asked Angela for a waltz, and said bravely: