"I know that!"
"How did they happen to ask you to dinner?" Mr. Vertrees inquired,
uneasily. "'Stextrawdn'ry thing!"
"Climbers' hospitality," Mary defined it. "We were so very cordial
and easy! I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as
any kind old woman on a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss
Sheridan who did it. She played around it awhile; you could see she
wanted to--she's in a dreadful hurry to get into things--and I fancied
she had an idea it might impress that Lamhorn boy to find us there
to-night. It's a sort of house-warming dinner, and they talked about
it and talked about it--and then the girl got her courage up and
blurted out the invitation. And mamma--" Here Mary was once more
a victim to incorrigible merriment. "Mamma tried to say yes, and
COULDN'T! She swallowed and squealed--I mean you coughed, dear! And
then, papa, she said that you and she had promised to go to a lecture
at the Emerson Club to-night, but that her daughter would be delighted
to come to the Big Show! So there I am, and there's Mr. Jim Sheridan
--and there's the clock. Dinner's at seven-thirty!"
And she ran out of the room, scooping up her fallen furs with a
gesture of flying grace as she sped.
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