own party? Just for a postscript
I'll tell you now that I expect you to come. If I've got to have a party
I want to have as many fellow-sufferers as possible."

"Does that mean"--and Fred laughed--"that you are not terribly excited
about your own party? It sounded that way."

He was not interested in parties himself; he had hardly been to one
since he was a child, and the thought of such an imposing function as he
assumed Phil's coming out would be appalled him. And there was the
matter of clothes: the dress-suit he had purchased while he was in
college had gone glimmering long ago. The Sunday best he wore to-day was
two years old, and a discerning eye might have detected its
imperfections which a recent careful pressing had not wholly
obliterated. His gaze turned for a moment toward the land in which lay
his hope; he had to look past Phil to see those acres. His thoughts were
still upon her party and his relation to it, so that it was with a
distinct shock that he heard her say softly and wistfully:--

"It's queer, isn't it?"

"What is?"

She lifted her arm with a sweeping gesture.

"The world--things generally--what interests you and me; what interests
Uncle Amy and Mr. Perry; the buzzings in all our noddles. Thousands of
people, in towns just like Montgomery, live along some way or other, and
most of them do the best they can, and keep out of jails and poorhouses,
mostly, and nothing very important happens to them or has to. It always
strikes me as odd how unimportant we all are. We're just us, and if God
didn't make us very big or wise or good, why, there's nothing to be done
about it. And no matter how hard we get knocked, or how often we
stumble, why, most of us like the game and wouldn't give it up for
anything. I think that's splendid; the way we just keep plugging on. We
all think something pleasant is going to happen to-morrow or
day-after-to-morrow. Everybody does. And that's what keeps the world
moving and everybody tolerably cheerful and happy."

Phil the philosopher was still another sort of person. She had spoken in
her usual tone and he looked at her wonderingly. It was a new experience
to hear life reduced to the simple terms Phil used. She seemed to him
like a teacher who keeps a dull pupil after class, and, by eliminating
all unessential factors, makes clear what an hour before had been only
a jumble of meaningless terms in the student's mind.

He was still dumb before this new Phil with her