Welcome home!

Marian,” said old Mr. King, putting his head in at the door of her little writing-room, “can’t you get her comfortably out of the way this morning?  I want your services without interruption.”

“She’s going down to Pinaud’s,” said Mrs. Whitney, looking up from the note she was writing.

“Capital! when she once gets there, she’ll stay the morning,” declared Mr. King, greatly pleased.  “Now, then, after she’s cleverly off, you may come to me.”

“I will, father,” said Marian, going back with a smile to her correspondence.

Half an hour later Thomas, with the aid of the horses and the shopping coupe having carried off Mrs. Chatterton, Mrs. Whitney pushed aside her notes, and ran down to her father’s study.

She found him in his velvet morning-gown seated before his table, busy with a good-sized list of names that was rapidly growing longer under his pen.

“Oh!  I forgot,” he said, looking up; “I intended to tell you to bring some of your cards and envelopes.  I want some invitations written.”

“Are you going to give a dinner?” asked Marian, looking over his shoulder.  “Oh, no!  I see by the length of your list it’s an evening affair, or a musicale.”

“You run along, daughter,” said the old gentleman, “and get what I tell you.  This is my affair; it’s a musicale and something else combined.  I don’t just know myself.”  And he laughed at the sight of her face.

“If father is only pleased, I don’t care what it is,” said Mrs. Whitney to herself, hurrying over the stairs and back again, never once thinking of Polly’s and Jasper’s surprise for the boys.

“You see, Marian,” said Mr. King as she sat down by the table, and laid the cards and envelopes in front of him, “that I’m going to help out that affair that Jasper and Polly are getting up.”

“Oh, father! how good of you!” exclaimed Mrs. Whitney in a delighted tone, which immensely pleased the old gentleman, to begin with.

“They’ve been working very hard, those two, at their studies this autumn.  I’ve seen them,” cried Mr. King with a shrewd air, “and I’m going now to give them a little pleasure.”

Marian said nothing, but let him have the comfort of doing all the talking, which he now enjoyed to his heart’s content.

“Whether the other chaps have done well, I don’t know.  Davie may have kept at it, but I suspect the rest of the boys haven’t killed themselves with hard study.  But they shall have a good home-coming, at any rate.”

Mrs. Whitney smiled, and he proceeded: 

“Now I’m going to send out these invitations”—­he pushed the list toward her—­“I shall have the drawing-room and music-room floors covered, and all extra seats arranged, give Turner carte blanche as to flowers, if he can’t furnish enough out of our own conservatories—­and the evening will end with a handsome ‘spread,’ as Jasper calls it.  In short, I shall recognize their attempt to make it pleasant for the boys’ holiday, by helping them out on the affair all I can.”  The old gentleman now leaned back in his big chair and studied his daughter’s face.