CHAPTER IX

THE “SHOWER”

The announcement party was great fun. In every way it was made to seem like a formal party and not just the gathering of the clans.

Adele received the guests in the ballroom, with Mona by her side. Adele was gorgeous in her best evening gown, a rose-coloured velvet, and Mona, in white net, looked like a débutante.

Patty took especial pains with her toilette, though it was not entirely necessary, for Patty looked well in anything. She chose a white crêpe, whose bewildering masses of tulle ruchings veiled a skirt of silver lace. The bodice of silver lace was ruched and draped with the soft crêpe, and Patty’s pretty throat and dimpled arms emerged as from a wave of sea foam. Her golden hair was massed in the prevailing fashion, caught with two pins of carved jade.

“Verra good, Eddie!” Patty remarked to Sarah, as she viewed her completed self in the mirror.

“Miss?” said the maid, unfamiliar with Patty’s nonchalant use of catch phrases.

“I said you done noble,” Patty returned, absently, as she rearranged the jade pins. She wore no other ornaments, and catching up a long floating scarf of white tulle spangled with silver, she ran downstairs.

But, remembering the occasion, she made a most dignified entrance to the reception room, and bowed exaggeratedly to Adele. “So pleased!” she murmured, offering her fingertips. “And Miss Galbraith. May I wish you all joy and felicity and happiness and good——”

“Come, come, Patty, give somebody else a chance. Don’t babble your good wishes all night!” She turned to see Kit waiting his turn, and she laughingly gave way to him.

“Isn’t it fine to see the men in their evening togs?” she exclaimed, turning to Elise. “I’m so used to seeing them in flannels or golf things, I scarcely recognise them.”

“_Do_ recognise me,” implored Channing, “I’m the sweet young thing you promised three extra dances to.”

“Three nothing!” returned Patty, carelessly. “I’m not sure I shall dance tonight, anyway. I shall spend my time admiring Mona, she looks so sweet.”

Mona did look sweet. The occasion brought a look of shyness to her face, which was as becoming as it was unusual. Roger stood by, proudly gazing at her, as he was, in turn, congratulated and chaffed by the men.

Dinner was announced, and Jim Kenerley offered his arm to Mona, while Adele followed the pair with Roger. The orchestra played the wedding march, and Channing, who stood next to Patty, escorted her. The rotation of the table seats had been changed for the occasion, and Adele and Jim sat opposite one another with their guests of honour at their right hands. The others sat where they chose, and Channing deftly manœuvred to place Patty next to Kenerley, as he dropped into the chair at her left.

“Who’s the great little old Machiavelli!” he said, chuckling. “Didn’t I arrange that just about right! You see, if I put you next to Kenerley, you won’t give _him_ all your undivided attention, as you would, with any of the others.”

“Well, if you aren’t the piggy-wig!”

“I am, as far as you are concerned. I cheerfully admit it. And I’ve practically got you all to myself for the whole dinner time. You can’t get away! Oh, joy!”

“Why is it such a feat? How do you know that I’m not equally crazy with joy to sit by you?”

“Oh, Patty! If I could believe that! What things you _do_ say to a fellow! Do you _mean_ it?”

“Considering I’ve only known you a few days, I couldn’t really mean it. You see, I make friendships very slowly. Moreover, I never mean anything I say at dinner. Table talk is an art. I’m proficient in it, and I know the rules. And the first one is, never be sincere.”

“Yes, I know that, too. But after dinner, say, out on that moonlit corner of the veranda——”

“There isn’t any moon now.”

“That’s why I refer to it at the dinner table. I don’t mean it, you see. Well, out in that unmoonlit corner, then, will you tell me one thing,—tell me truly?”

“Certainly. I’ll tell you two things truly, even three, if you like. But they must be things of my own choosing.”

“First, yes. Then it will be my turn. And I shall ask you something very important.”

“Then I shall run away. My mind is so full of important things just now, that it simply won’t hold another one.”

“You don’t know me yet. I’m a man who always has his own way.”

“How interesting! I don’t think I ever knew one before. All the men I have known have politely deferred to _my_ way.”

“Indeed? You must be longing for a change.”

“Not only that, but it is positively necessary that I talk to my other-side man now. Where are your manners, that you have so long neglected your other-side lady?”

“With thee conversing, I forgot all manners. Also, the fair Miss Homer is absorbed in Mr. Peyton’s gay chat.”

“Well, give her a change, then. Marie, please turn this way. Mr. Channing is dying to talk to you.”

Marie turned, with a pretty smile, and Patty gave her attention to Jim.

“You see, Jim,” she said, “this is a formal dinner, and you must observe the fifteen minute rule. It isn’t like our every-day meals. Mona, how do you like being guest of honour?”

“I’m a little embarrassed,” said Mona, who wasn’t at all; “but I’m getting along somehow. Isn’t Roger splendid?”

The naïveté of Mona’s gaze at her newly betrothed made Jim Kenerley chuckle. “You’ll do, Mona!” he said.

The table decorations were as appropriate as they could be made with little to work with. Patty had contrived a chime of wedding bells, of white tissue paper for the centrepiece, and at each plate was an orange, cored and holding a few flowers of various sorts.

“These are orange blossoms,” Adele explained; “though not quite the conventional style, they show our good intentions.”

The feast went on gaily, and after the dessert, the shower took place.

The head waiter brought in a tray on which were the gifts the girls had collected for Mona. They were beautiful and worth-while things, and the personal element they represented endeared them to the pleased recipient.

“You darling people!” she exclaimed. “You couldn’t have done anything that would please me more! It is heavenly kind of you and I love you for it. I shall use them all, at once.”

So Mona slipped Patty’s ring on her finger, threw Adele’s scarf round her shoulders, and tucking the wonderful lace handkerchief in her belt, she waved the fan to and fro. The centrepiece, which Marie managed to get finished in time, Mona calmly laid in place under her own dinner plate, and she declared that she was perfectly happy.

“Now, for _our_ shower,” said Jim. “It isn’t fair that the bride-elect should get all the loot, so we take pleasure in presenting to our distinguished,—at least, distinguished-looking friend, and fellow-traveller, some few tokens of our approval of his course. Myself, I offer these dainty boudoir slippers, knowing that they will be acceptable, not only for their artistic merit, but for their intrinsic value. Take them, Farrington, with my tearful wish for your happiness.”

Kenerley gave Roger a good-sized parcel, tied up in tissue paper and ribbons, which, when opened, disclosed a furiously gaudy and old-fashioned pair of “worsted-work” slippers. He had unearthed them at the bazaar in the village, where they had doubtless been on sale since the early eighties.

Everybody laughed at the grotesque things, but Roger, in the mood of the moment, made a gay and graceful speech of thanks.

Then Bob Peyton presented a smoking set. This was an impossible affair, of “hand-painted” china. The ash tray bore the cheerful motto of “ashes to ashes!” and the tobacco jar was so clouded with artistic smoke wreaths, that Kit declared it ought to be labelled “Dust to Dust.”

Cameron’s gift was a tie case. Evidently fashioned by feminine fingers, it was of pink silk, a little faded, embroidered with blue forget-me-nots.

“Tasty, isn’t it?” said Kit, holding it up for general admiration. “I hesitated a long time between this and a sponge bag. The other would be more useful, but there’s something so fetching about this,—that I couldn’t get away from it.”

“Don’t let _me_ get you away from it, Cameron,” said Roger; “I’d hate to deprive you of anything you admire so sincerely. Take it from me——”

“No, Roger,” said Kit, firmly. “I cannot take it from you. I give it to you,—a little grudgingly, ’tis true,—but I give it. I may never have another chance to make you an announcement shower, and so, on this ’spicious ’casion, I stop at nothing.”

“You’re a noble fellow, Cameron,” and Roger’s voice was surcharged with emotion of some sort. “I accept your gift in the spirit in which it is given, and I trust I may some day have the opportunity to shower you in return.”

“I hope to goodness you will, Farrington, and I now thank you in advance.”

“Postpone those thanks, please,” broke in Channing; “your time’s up. I say, Old Top, here’s the best prize yet. I offer you this picture frame. But it is no ordinary picture frame. Observe. It is made of birch bark in neat pattern, and decorated with real pine cones, securely glued on. No danger of their fetching loose, I’ve tested ’em. Now, in this highly artistic, if a trifle ponderous setting, you can place Miss Galbraith’s portrait, and wear it next your heart or dream with it beneath your pillow. To be sure, it is pretty big and heavy for either of these uses, but’s what a bit of inconvenience compared to the sentiment of the thing?”

Channing held out an enormous and cumbersome frame of heavy pine cones, glued to a board back; a fright of a thing, made by some of the native country people. As a matter of fact, these jesting gifts all came from the little village shop, where native talent was more in evidence than good taste.

“Heavenly!” exclaimed Roger, casting his eyes toward the ceiling. “Look, Mona, is it not a peach? Will you give me a miniature of your sweet face to grace it? Oh, _say_ you will!”

Roger’s absurd expression and exaggerated enthusiasm sent them all off into paroxysms of laughter, and Mona had no need for reply.

“Farrington, old man,” said Bill Farnsworth then, “brace yourself. I have the best gift yet, for you. The most appropriate, and combining a graceful sentiment with a charming usefulness. Behold!”

From voluminous folds of white tissue paper, Bill shook out an Oriental robe, of gold-embroidered silk. It was really gorgeous and looked as if made for a Chinese mandarin. There were Dragons in raised work and borders of chrysanthemums. Bill flung it round Roger, to whose stalwart form the strange garb was most becoming.

Everybody exclaimed in admiration. Only foolish gifts had been looked for and this was worthy of real praise. The long loose sleeves hung gracefully down, and the obi or sash was fringed with silk tassels.

“A stunning thing!” exclaimed Adele. “Where _did_ you get it, Bill?”

“San Francisco,” returned Farnsworth, “but my heart is broken. You have none of you noticed the real sentiment, the reason for the gift. Oh, how dense you are!”

“What do you mean?” asked Adele, puzzled.

“Can’t you see?” cried Farnsworth. “Where are your wits? Why should I give that thing to Farrington, _today_?”

They all looked blank, till suddenly it dawned on Patty.

“Oh, Little Billee!” she cried, “oh, you clever, clever thing! Oh, girls, don’t you see? It’s a _Ki-Mona_!”

Then they did see, and they cheered and complimented Farnsworth on his witty gift.

“It’s so clever and so beautiful, I think I shall take it myself,” Mona declared, and Roger tossed it over to her. “With all my worldly goods—may as well begin at once,” he said with a mock air of resignation.

The shower over, they went to the ballroom to dance. Of course “Sir Roger de Coverly” was first on the programme, and after that the more modern dances.

Patty tried to evade Chick Channing, for he was growing a bit insistent in his attentions.

“Take me for a veranda stroll, Kit,” she said, as she saw Channing approaching. “I want you to tell me all about that fortune business. But first, how did you ever come to think of it?”

“Oh, you know my fatal facility for practical jokes. Come, sit in this palmy bower, and I’ll tell you all I know, and then some.”

They sauntered in to the pretty glass-enclosed nook, and sat down among the palms. “You see,” Kit went on, “I haven’t played a joke in I dunno when, and I just _had_ to get one off. So when I was prowling around, and struck that empty shack, the idea sprang full-fledged to my o’er clever brain. I fixed it up with Bobbink,—and the rest is history. Bobsy is a great boy, though a little fresh. He got the make-up for my face, and the rugs and things. He fixed them all in the old shanty, and then he carried out the toothache farce in accordance with my orders.”

“Yes, he did very well. But I mean about the fortunes. How did you know about the man Daisy is so interested in,—the one who wants to be Mayor of——”

“Sh! that’s a state secret. I know lots of things, but I keep them to myself.”

“All right,” said Patty, seeing he was in earnest. “But about somebody leaving me money. Did you make _that_ up?”

“Not entirely,” and Kit still looked serious. “Perhaps you will receive a legacy some day. But did you note what I told you about your fate?”

“No,” said Patty, as she ran away back to the house.