Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and
Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake,
and why should they be ashamed of it?"

Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, but
they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work."

"That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she
would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most
fun. She hated pretences, and being fine."

Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming;
for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and
a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there
in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to
call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the
kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the
big trees.

Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suit
and bright buttons.

"Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer,
looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point the
Inglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!"

It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were
walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not
been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs.
Marchbanks's?