Those Dale Girls Part 20

"I have just learned that my little girls are not coming," he said when Kenneth had joined him there. "I fear, my boy, that something is wrong and I am off. If people miss me say I was called away to a patient.

Every one knows I am not to be counted on socially. Then there is Gremond. He knew the girls long ago and has been looking forward to meeting them to-night. Tell him they were prevented at the last moment from coming and give him their address so he can call if he likes." It was characteristic of Dr. Ware that he left nothing undone.

"You are not apprehensive of anything very serious, are you?" asked Kenneth who himself felt more concern than he cared to show.

"No, no; why should I be? They may merely be tired out and have gone to bed or they may need me-I can't take any chances where they are concerned, my boy."

"Of course not," said Kenneth with unusual emphasis. "If you are going to walk over, Doctor, I'd like to go along with you."

"Take you away from the festivities? Nonsense! The girls in there would never forgive me!"

"Oh! hang the whole business! I beg your pardon, Doctor, I forgot it was your sister's function."

The Doctor laughed. "Come along with me. You need ozone to restore your placidity, but go back again later, like an obliging chap, if only to give my message to poor Gremond."

They had been swinging along for several blocks in the cool night air when Landor broke the silence by exclaiming savagely, "What in thunder has Jules Gremond to do with them!"

"With the Dales?" asked the Doctor innocently, inwardly amused at Landor's resentful tone. "He met them in California, I believe."

"Umph!" grunted Kenneth.

"Here we are," said the Doctor presently as they reached the house, "and there are lights in their rooms, so they are up about something and it is well I came. Goodnight, and thank you for walking over with me, Kenneth."

"Dr. Ware," said the younger man wistfully, detaining him a moment on the steps, "if there is anything wrong up there," with a motion of his head toward the top story, "you'll let me know, won't you? And if I could be of the slightest service you'll call on me without hesitation, won't you? Of course I know they've no possible use for a chap like me but I'd move heaven and earth to do anything-to feel that I was really of service to them in any way."

"You could not be better employed, Kenneth," said the Doctor, looking down on him affectionately. "I shall remember what you say and I like you the better for saying it. Good-night."

Dr. Ware hastened into the house and up the long flights of stairs leading to the Dales' apartment and knocked at the door, hesitating at so late an hour to startle them by ringing the bell. Evidently they were expecting him, for steps came down the little hall and the door was opened almost immediately by Bridget.

"The saints be praised!" she exclaimed, "but it's the Doctor!"

"You were expecting me, of course, Bridget," as she helped him off with his coat.

"Bless your heart but I can't say as we wus, sir, glad though they'll be to see your blessed face."

"Of course I would come. Don't they know that by this time? Who is ill?

Is the Major worse? I should have been here long ago had I not been expecting them at the house every moment."

"They ain't ill, sir, they're workin'", was her reply. "Maybe you'd better come right out to the kitchen an' see for yourself their carryin's on. We're all at it to-night an' it's the fearful time they've had but it's all plain sailin' to the end now," she wound up hopefully.

Somewhat mystified, Dr. Ware followed and stood speechless on the threshold of the kitchen. For there were the girls in their cotton gowns with sleeves rolled up to the shoulders working away at what were to him inexplicable things, while over in a corner sat Jack half buried in a pile of small white boxes. The whole room presented the bustle of eleven in the morning rather than eleven in the evening.

"You bad Dr. Ware," said Julie playfully when she saw him, "what made you come?" She stopped her work a moment and whisking her ap.r.o.n over the chair Bridget had drawn out for him, motioned him to sit down. "We're just daubed with frosting from one end of the place to the other, but we can't stop working a moment, so if you dare, risk a chair?"

The Doctor sat down. He would have taken the chair with the same equanimity if it had been caked with frosting.

"Now what does this mean, at this hour?" he said.

"Didn't Miss Ware get our note? Oh! I am so sorry. We are terribly sorry to miss the reception, aren't we, Hester?"

"Um-um," said Hester absorbed in making elaborate frosting designs on small pieces of cake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THERE WERE THE GIRLS IN THEIR COTTON GOWNS]

"We wrote her," continued Julie, "that we were detained by our work and I suppose if she did not get it that you thought when we did not appear something was the matter with Daddy. What a shame you had that anxiety for nothing!"

"You must go straight back," said Hester. "We are getting on famously and you must not miss another minute of the reception."

"You want to get me out of the way, I suppose, so you can keep up this orgy until all hours. I know you, you minx! I shan't budge until I know all about it so you may as well begin." He surveyed the group with a smiling imperturbable manner that was impossible to withstand. Jack, gazing at him out of the corner of his eye, thought he had never seen so splendid a gentleman and indeed his evening clothes became the Doctor tremendously so that he had never looked more handsome nor distinguished than at that moment as he sat among them leaning back in the kitchen chair.

"It is all this wedding-cake," said Hester disgustedly. "It has acted like Sam Patch!"

"It is the first we have ever done," explained Julie. "We took an order for two hundred boxes of cake and a big loaf, all for a wedding, and we made the cake a month ago. Oh! such a time as we had! You see, we are such ignoramuses that we have to wade through endless wrong ways before we discover the right one and we thought we had all the loaves properly frosted to cut for the boxes; but when we tried to cut the slices all the frosting fell off and so we had to begin all over again. Then we decided it would be better to cut the cake up into pieces for the boxes first and frost each one separately and-"

"_We_ didn't any such thing!" interrupted Hester. "That was Julie's brilliant inspiration and she worked out all the frosting designs too.

The big loaf and the bride's cake are perfect beauties. Did you know the bride's cake always had a ring and a thimble and a coin hidden in it for luck? Just look at the cakes over there," waving her hand toward a side table, "aren't they distinctly professional? Julie's been hanging around caterers' windows with her nose pressed against the gla.s.s studying their fancy frosted show pieces until I wonder she hasn't been arrested for a suspicious character. Of course that childlike and bland countenance of hers was greatly in her favor but," resignedly, "I was prepared for the worst."

"Miss Hester will have her laugh," said Bridget, "but 'tain't no laughin' matter this job they're putting through!"

"Now Bridget, you keep still," expostulated Julie. "She has been scolding us all the evening," to Dr. Ware, "and frightening poor Jack to death, hasn't she, Jack? Jack came to bring Daddy's paper, you know, which he prints in great style since Mr. Landor has given him a printing press, and when he found we were busy he begged so hard to come out to the kitchen and help that we just had to let him. He's been helping Bridget cut paraffine paper into squares-for each piece of cake has to be wrapped separately before it goes into its box-and they have cut all the white ribbon into pieces the right length to tie around the boxes and now they're uncovering the boxes and getting them ready for the cake as soon as the frosting dries. Jack has been invaluable, hasn't he, Bridget?"

"Humph!" grunted Bridget, with whom, nevertheless, the boy was a prime favorite.

"Good heavens! Julie," cried the Doctor, "does one little box of wedding-cake mean all that?"

"Two hundred do," smiling, "but another time we'll know better how to go at it."

All during this conversation she and Hester had been bending over the big work-table making curious evolutions with frosting bags over the pieces of cake spread everywhere about the room. Presently Hester dropped her bag and sat down.

"Well," she exclaimed, "I believe they are done-that part. Dr. Ware,"

turning to him suddenly, "doesn't it strike you as funny that instead of disporting ourselves gayly in the festivities of the town we should be wasting our youth and beauty-doesn't that sound just like a book!-our youth and beauty over aggravating old things like these?" with a disgusted look at the wedding-cake. "You do not seem to laugh but I think it's tremendously funny. Dear me!" to the air, reflectively, "how trying it must be to get on without a sense of humor!" Then with an entire change of tone, "We did want to go awfully, especially as we had a suspicion that some one might be there. I wonder," dreamily, "if he was."

"I fancy so," said the Doctor, hardly knowing whether or not to take her seriously. "Come back with me now and find out."

"Can't," said Hester, "but you might be an angel and tell us if we knew any one there."

"Let me see, there was Landor-"

"Oh! bother Mr. Landor!" with a toss of her head. "He's omnipresent!"

"Um," thought the Doctor, "I've struck the nail on the head." Outwardly he said, "Then there was Renshawe,-you know him, do you not, and a guest of his who was tucked under my wing-apparently for protection against the wiles of the women who are trying systematically to spoil him with adulation."

"I know him," said Hester, "that is Monsieur Jules Gremond."

"Yes," replied the Doctor, "I thought you would guess. He told me he knew you girls and I believe he is hunting my house over for you at this moment." He was talking to Hester but watching Julie narrowly.

"There! Julie Dale," exclaimed her sister triumphantly, "what did I tell you! I knew he would not forget us. She swore, Dr. Ware, that he would have forgotten our very existence and I vowed that he carried her image around on his heart and all sorts of high-sounding things. Shouldn't wonder if they were true, too," to Dr. Ware confidingly, "and you needn't blush so furiously about it, either, Julie Dale?"

"I am not blushing," protested poor Julie who was crimson, "and I'll have Bridget carry you off bodily if you don't stop talking such nonsense. Don't you mind what she says, will you Dr. Ware?" pleadingly.

"She would rather tease than eat any day."