M THAT TURNED 229

XVIII CONCLUSION 244

DOROTHY'S HOUSE PARTY

CHAPTER I

THE END OF AN INFAIR

Dorothy sat up in bed and looked about her. For a moment she did not
realize where she was nor how she came to be in such a strange and
charming room. Then from somewhere in the distance sounded a merry,
musical voice, singing:

"Old Noah of old he built an ark--
One more river to cross!
He built it out of hickory bark--
One more riv----"

The refrain was never finished. Dorothy was at the open window calling
lustily:

"Alfy! Alfy Babcock! Come right up here this very, very minute!"

"Heigho, Sleepy Head! You awake at last? Well, I should think it was
time. I'll be right up, just as soon as I can put these yeller
artemisias into Mis' Calvert's yeller bowl."

A fleeting regret that she had not waked earlier, that it was not she
who had gathered the morning nosegay for Mrs. Betty's table, shadowed
the fair face of the late riser; but was promptly banished as the full
memory of all that happened on the night before came back to her.
Skipping from point to point of the pretty chamber she examined it in
detail, exclaiming in delight over this or that and, finally, darting
within the white-tiled bathroom where some thoughtful person had
already drawn water for her bath.

"Oh! it's like a fairy-tale and I'm in a real fairy-land, seems if!
What a dainty tub! What heaps of great soft towels! and what a lovely
bath-robe! And oh! what a wonderful great-aunt Betty!"

A moisture not wholly due to the luxurious bath filled Dorothy's eyes,
as she took her plunge, for her heart was touched by the evidences of
the loving forethought which had thus prepared for her home-coming
before she herself knew she possessed a birthright home. Of her past
life the reader if interested may learn quite fully, for the facts are
detailed in the two books known as "Dorothy's Schooling," and
"Dorothy's Travels."

So though it was still a radiantly happy girl who welcomed Alfaretta
it was a thoughtful one; so that Alfy again paused in her caroling to
demand:

"Well, Dolly Doodles, what's the matter? If I'd been as lucky as you
be I wouldn't draw no down-corners to my mouth, I wouldn't! I'd sing
louder'n ever and just hustle them 'animals' into that 'ark' 'two by
two,' for 'There's one more river to cross! One more river--One more
river to cr