CHAPTER XX

THE PARTY ITSELF

The weedy roadside was a witching tangle of shadows, and the air was drowsy with spicy, wind-blown scents, as four motor cars swept on their merry way to Foxford.

Juanita Sterling, in the last of the procession, watched the gay little imps dance across the windshield and thought glad thoughts.  It was going to be a worth-while evening she felt sure, and it was good that her left-hand neighbors, Miss Major and Mrs. Winslow Teed, had each other to entertain, and she was free to anticipate and ponder and to feast her heart on the visions of the night.

The sometimes insisting opinions of Miss Major and the familiar “When I was abroad” of Mrs. Winslow Teed seldom obtruded on her dreams.  Once, however, she came to her surroundings with a start.

“No,” Miss Major was asserting, “Nelson Randolph is not the man for the place.  He takes some things for granted and lets other things drift.  If we had a good, live president, our superintendent would get her walking ticket instanter.”

“A little strange he doesn’t marry again.  His wife has been gone for some years, hasn’t she?”

“Five last June.  They say he is devoted to her memory.  I don’t take much stock in such devotedness—­so far as men are concerned.  When he finds some pink and white doll that is sufficiently captivating he will go through with another wedding ceremony.”

“That makes me think of a Danish couple I met in Florence,” began Mrs. Winslow Teed; “she couldn’t have been over nineteen or twenty, and he was eighty at least.  She—­”

Miss Sterling was again absorbed in her own thoughts and never heard what became of the poorly-mated travelers.

Doodles and Blue ran down from the veranda as the cars speeded up the slope to the little bungalow, and they were quickly in the midst of a joyous circle.

Polly and David, alighting from the third car, ran back to help Miss Sterling and the others.

“Oh, Miss Nita!  Wasn’t the ride lovely?” Polly squeezed her friend’s arm.  “Say, did you know, at the very last minute Miss Sniffen sent over word that Mrs. Bonnyman couldn’t go?  She had the toothache, and so mother came in her place!  Oh, I did wish you were in our car!  I wanted to say, ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ and ‘Just look at this!’”

“You could talk to David,” laughed Miss Sterling.

“Oh, yes, I did some!  But Mrs. Crump was jabbering to him most of the time.  Haven’t you ever been out here before?  Why, I thought you had!—­How d’ y’ do, Doodles!”

The three went up the steps hand in hand.

“Isn’t that the loveliest, biggest moon you ever saw?” exclaimed Polly.

While they lingered to look at it a car flashed up the road and turned in at the entrance.

“Somebody going to the Flemings’,” remarked Doodles carelessly.