She concluded it would be a
good time to dash off a letter to Holland, but with a foresight which
prompted her to be ready for any occasion, she decided to dress first
for the evening. Tiptoeing around the room, she brushed her hair in the
new way Mom Beck had taught her, and, taking out her prettiest white
dress, proceeded to array herself in honor of the best man's coming.
Then she rummaged in the tray of her trunk till she found her pink coral
necklace and fan-chain, and, with a sigh of satisfaction that she was
ready for any emergency, seated herself at her letter-writing.

She had written only a page, however, when the clock on the stairs
chimed four. The deep tones echoing through the hall sent Lloyd bouncing
up from her couch, her hair falling over her shoulders and her long
kimono tripping her at every step, as she ran into Joyce's room.

"What are we going to do?" she cried in dismay. "I ovahslept myself, and
now it's foah o'clock, and Phil's train due in nine minutes. The
carriage is at the doah and none of us dressed to go to meet him. I
wrote that the entiah bridal party would be there."

Joyce sprang up in a dazed sort of way, and began putting on her
slippers. The bridesmaids had talked so much about the grand welcome the
best man was to receive on his entrance to the Valley that, half-awake
as she was, she could not realize that it was too late to carry out
their plans.

"Oh, it's no use trying to get ready now," said Lloyd, in a disappointed
tone. "We couldn't dress and get to the station in time to save ou'
lives." Then her glance fell on Mary, sitting at her desk in all her
brave array of pink ribbons and corals.

"Why, Mary can go!" she cried, in a relieved tone. "I had forgotten that
she knows Phil as well as we do. Run on, that's a deah! Don't stop for a
hat! You won't need it in the carriage. Tell him that you're the maid of
honah on this occasion!"

It was all over so quickly, the rapid drive down the avenue, the quick
dash up to the station as the train came puffing past, that Mary had
little time to rehearse the part she had been bidden to play. She was so
afraid that Phil would not recognize her that she wondered if she ought
not to begin by introducing herself. She pictured the scene in her mind
as they rolled along, unconscious that she was smiling and bowing into
empty air, as she rehearsed the speech with which she intended to
impress him. She would be as dignified and gracious as the