"We're none of us dressed to meet strangers. Run, Mam
Daphne! How fortunate you are here to go to the door!"
A moment later the old coloured woman was fumbling at the long unused
bolts, while the girls listened breathlessly at the dining-room door.
It was a lady's voice that reached them. Evidently some one who had
been at the house in its palmy days, for she recognised Mam Daphne as
an old servant.
"I want to see all the young ladies, Daphne," she said. "Tell them
that it is Mrs. Gorham, their mother's old friend and schoolmate, from
Lexington. Tell them I am on my way to Louisville, and have taken the
liberty of stopping off to spend the day, without sending them word."
Then, as if to herself, they heard her say: "I've lived in Kentucky
too long, and enjoyed Alice Mason's hospitality too often not to be
sure of a welcome from her daughters."
Wilma sank down limply in a disconsolate heap on the floor. "Oh,
sister, what _shall_ we do?" she whispered to Agnes. "_Must_ we give
up the picnic, and that glorious ride home by moonlight, when it's
probably the only outing of the kind we'll have this summer? The boys
were going to take their banjos and mandolins, and they counted on us
to help serenade--"
Claribel interrupted her with a grim face. "There's no help for it.
Don't you see, Wilma, that we've got to give it up? Don't you know
that everything fit to eat in the house went into that picnic basket?
We can't go without it, and we can't take it and leave sister to
entertain the company without its help.
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