Old Rose and Silver

"You come out and see us," urged Juliet, hospitably.

"I will, indeed. May I have a dog?"

"They're Romie's and I can't give 'em away, but I guess he could spare you one. Would you rather have a puppy or a full-grown dog?"

"I'd have to see 'em first," he replied, tactfully steering away from the danger of a choice. He had not felt the need of a dog and was merely trying to be pleasant.

"There's plenty to see," she went on, with a winning smile. "I like dogs myself but we fought once because I thought we had too many. We've named 'em all out of an old book we found in the attic. There's Achilles, and Hector, and Persephone, and Minerva, and Circe and Juno, and Priam, and Eurydice, and goodness knows how many more. Romie knows all their names, but I don't."

Hearing the sound of wheels outside, Colonel Kent, with a certain old- fashioned hospitality to which our generation might happily return, went to open the door himself for his expected guests. Juliet went hastily to the mirror to make sure that her turbulent curls were in order, and Romeo intercepted Allison on his way to the door.

"I heard what she said," Romeo remarked, in a low tone, "about my having been up here, but I didn't tell her I was here. I don't lie to Jule, but I'm responsible only for what I say, not for what she thinks."

Allison smiled with full understanding of the situation. "We men have to be careful what we say to women," he replied, with an air of caution and comradeship that made his young guest feel like a full-fledged man of the world.

"Sure," assented Romeo, with a broad grin and a movement of one eyelid which was almost--but not quite--a wink.

Presently the three other guests came in, followed by the Colonel. Madame Francesca was in white silk over which violets had been scattered with a lavish hand, then woven into the shining fabric. She wore violets in her hair and at her belt, and a single amethyst at her throat. Isabel was in white, with flounces of spangled lace, and Rose was unusually lovely in a gown of old gold satin and a necklace of palest topaz. In her dark hair was a single yellow rose.

Juliet was for the moment aghast at so much magnificence and painfully conscious of her own white muslin gown. Madame Francesca, reading her thought, drew the girl's tall head down and kissed her. "What a clover blossom you are," she said, "all in freshest white, with pink cheeks and sunshiny curls!"