elvet might be too hot for August. She visioned herself in
an airy creation of batiste--very simple, but the colour combination
a ravishing mingling of palest pink and baby-blue, with ribbons
fluttering; delicately tinted long gloves; delicately tinted slippers
and silken stockings on her slender, high-arched feet; a few glittering
rings on her restless fingers; one blush-pink rose in her hair which,
simply arranged, suffered two or three stray rippling locks to wander
wantonly across her forehead.

"Missy! It's ten minutes to six! And you haven't even combed your hair!"
It was mother at the door again.

The first guest arrived before Missy had got her hair "smoothed up"--no
time, tonight, to try any rippling, wanton effects. She could hear the
swelling sound of voices and laughter in the distance--oh, dreadful! Her
fingers became all thumbs as she sought to get into the dotted swiss,
upside down.

Mother came in just in time to extricate her, and buttoned the dress
with maddeningly deliberate fingers.

"Now, don't fret yourself into a headache, dear," she said in a voice
meant to be soothing. "The party won't run away--just let yourself
relax."

Relax!

The musicians, out on the side porch, were already beginning their
blaring preparations when the hostess, at last, ran down the stairs and
into the front parlour. Her agitation had no chance to subside before
they must file out to the dining room. Missy hadn't had time before to
view the completely embellished dining room and, now, in all its glory
and grandeur, it struck her full force: the potted palms screening the
windows through which floated strains of music, streamers of blue and
gold stretching from the chandelier to the four corners of the room in
a sort of canopy, the long white table with its flowers and gleaming
silver--

It might almost have been the scene of a function at Chetwoode Manor
itself!

In a kind of dream she was wafted to the head of the table; for, since
the function was at her house, Missy had been voted the presiding place
of honour. It is a very great responsibility to sit in the presiding
place of honour. From that conspicuous position one leads the whole
table's activities: conversing to the right, laughing to the left,
sharply on the lookout for any conversational gap, now and then drawing
muted tete-a-tetes into a harmonic unison. She is, as it were, the
leader of an orchestra of which the individual diners are the subsidiary