ing been rapturously
welcomed upstairs and down and kept as long as possible.

"Everybody is delighted with the idea!" Polly dropped to the
hassock at Miss Sterling's knee. "They're all going--if they
can!--except Mrs. Post and Mrs. Prindle. Mrs. Post has had a
pull-back and she can't walk at all, and Mrs. Prindle's cold is
worse. I think the rest will just fill the cars."

She counted up, and found seats and occupants to agree.

"I'm wondering whether to have Mrs. Adlerfeld or Miss Lily sit with
Colonel Gresham--which would you?" Polly was all alight with her
planning.

"The Colonel would enjoy Mrs. Adlerfeld best. Miss Lily would be
too shy to say anything."

"So she would! I only thought of her because she's the birthday
girl. Oh! You can't imagine how surprised she was--I thought
she'd better know it right away, and not try to be secret about it."

Miss Sterling smiled assent.

"She looked as if she were going to cry," Polly went on; "but then
I said something funny, and she laughed. I could see she was
wonderfully pleased that Doodles should propose it. I'm glad he
did, for I guess she doesn't have very much to make her happy.

"Oh, I forgot! What do you think Mrs. Adlerfeld calls it? I
happened to say we thought it was so nice it came when the moon was
full, and she said, 'Thank you, I shall be so glad and happy to go!
I am very fond about moonshine nights!' Isn't that just lovely?
I'm going to call it a 'moonshine' party! It is ever so much
prettier than 'moonlight.' Won't Colonel Gresham be pleased to
have Mrs. Adlerfeld sit with him!"

CHAPTER XX

THE PARTY ITSELF

The weedy roadside was a witching tangle of shadows, and the air
was drowsy with spicy, wind-blown scents, as four motor cars swept
on their merry way to Foxford.

Juanita Sterling, in the last of the procession, watched the gay
little imps dance across the windshield and thought glad thoughts.
It was going to be a worth-while evening she felt sure, and it was
good that her left-hand neighbors, Miss Major and Mrs. Winslow
Teed, had each other to entertain, and she was free to anticipate
and ponder and to feast her heart on the visions of the night.

The sometimes insisting opinions of Miss Major and the familiar
"When I was abroad" of Mrs. Winslow Teed seldom obtruded on her
dreams. Once, however, she came to her surroundings with a start.

"No," Miss Major was asserting, "Nelson Randolph is not the man for
th