I shall be very glad to have him
know the daughters of my old friend."
"Oh," cried Wilma, as Agnes read the letter aloud, "if he is half as
interesting as his mother's tales of him, he must be a real Prince
Charming. But, oh, girls, _don't_ you hope he'll wait until
'Carrington' is out? It would be dreadfully embarrassing if, after his
mother's account of our hospitality, we could give him only scraps.
There can't always be a picnic basket to fall back on."
The prospective guest was often discussed during the summer that
followed; and, although he never came, Wilma was always alarming the
family, when affairs were especially unpropitious, by the query,
"What if he should suddenly drop in upon us _now_?"
"There's no use of your crying 'wolf' any longer," said Claribel,
impatiently, one rainy morning, near the middle of September. "He's
surely gone back to college by this time. What if a letter did come to
sister this morning, addressed in a strange handwriting? It is from
some new man on the _Sentinel_, probably."
"At any rate," insisted Wilma, "I wish it had come before sister went
to town, and if it should be from Mrs. Gorham's son, of all the
unlucky days in creation, he couldn't have chosen a worse time to
arrive. The situation is absolutely hopeless."
The two girls were in the attic, arrayed in their oldest wrappers.
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