Lucile Triumphant Part 11

"I'll do my best," she promised, and ran lightly down the stairs and into the dining-room, where the family were already a.s.sembled.

"How do you like it?" she cried, dropping them a low curtsey and smiling like a little witch. "It's the first time I've had it on, Mother and Dad and Phil--how do you like it? Isn't it becoming?" and she executed several little toe-dances which brought her so near Phil that he hugged her impulsively.

"It's a peach, and so are you, Lucy. I didn't know you could look like that," said he, eyeing her approvingly.

"It's a beauty," said her father, but his eyes were more for the rosy cheeks and dancing eyes of his little girl than they were for the beloved new dress.

Once, while Lucy and Phil were in the midst of an animated discussion about some baseball game or other that they had seen recently, Mr. Payton managed a sly wink in his wife's direction that said more plainly than any words, "Aren't you proud of them? And they are all ours!"

At quarter past eight the first of Mrs. Wescott's young guests began to arrive. They came in relays of three and four, all very excited and happy and eager for a good time.

Promptly at eight thirty Lucile and Phil, with Jessie and a cousin of hers, Jack Turnbull by name, started up the drive to Mrs. Wescott's beautiful home.

"Doesn't it look lovely with the lights all over the place?" said Jessie.

"Yes; especially because it has looked so forsaken for the last six months," Lucile answered. A few moments later they reached the door and were ushered into the brilliantly lighted hall.

"Lucy, stay near me, will you?" Jessie urged in a nervous whisper. "I don't know half these people."

"Cheer up; we're all in the same fix," whispered Phil over her shoulder.

"We four can stick together, anyway."

"You have the right idea," said Jack Turnbull, with perhaps a trifle more emphasis than was necessary, and with a glance toward Lucile, who had gone forward to meet her hostess.

"Oh, he always has the right idea," Jessie chaffed, with a merry glance at Phil, and then she followed Lucile to her guardian's side.

She greeted her guardian and then looked reproachfully at Lucile.

"Here, just the minute after I ask you not to go away, you desert me,"

she said.

"Well, I didn't go very far," Lucile consoled.

Mrs. Wescott laughed. "Go up in my room and get your things off, girls,"

she directed. "You'll find Margaret and Evelyn up there. Come down as soon as you can," she added, as they started upstairs. "I want to introduce you all around."

"All right, we'll hurry," said Lucile, and then squeezed her friend's hand. "Oh, Jessie, what a lark!" she whispered. "We're in for a good time to-night."

"You have the right idea, as Jack says," answered Jessie. "Did you see him look at you, Lucy?"

"Hus.h.!.+ they're right behind us," cautioned Lucile. "h.e.l.lo, girls," she cried, as she entered the room. "I don't see how you managed to get here before us."

"Oh, that's easy," laughed Evelyn. "How lovely you look! Oh, I love your dresses--both of them! Are they new?"

"Of course they are, or we would have seen them before," said Margaret.

"Well, we're not the only ones, anyway," said Lucile. "I know yours are new. They're awfully pretty."

"We're all satisfied then," said Jessie, briskly. "Lucy, will you _please_ put this pin in where it will do the most good. I never can keep this lock of hair in place."

"You poor infant!" said Lucile. "Come here and let me fix you."

Then some strange girls came in and, after a few admonitory pats of stubborn bows and ruffles, the girls started downstairs. They made a pretty picture as they descended the wide staircase together, and as they reached the last step their guardian disengaged herself from a laughing group of young folks and came forward to meet them with an approving smile.

"You didn't stay up there as long as I expected," she laughed. "Now come in and meet everybody."

The introductions were soon over, much to everybody's relief, and the girls were surprised to find how many of the boys and girls they knew.

"Why, I know most all of them," Lucile confided to Jack in a lull. "Those I don't know to speak to, I've seen over and over again on the street."

"That's not strange," said Jack. "There's a great big crowd and it's growing every minute. Here are some new arrivals!"

"Oh, it's Marjorie and Dot, with the boys," she cried, jumping up. "Will you excuse me a minute? I'll be right back," and she threw him a glance so full of sparkling mischief that his heart leaped suddenly and unaccountably, and Phil had to speak to him twice before he could make himself heard.

In half an hour the dancing began. The floor of the two great rooms that had been thrown open for the use of the guests had been polished till they shone, and at the far end of the room a platform had been erected, upon which sat the musicians, partly screened by magnificent palms. The rooms were decorated from end to end with flowers and the air was heavy with their perfume.

At an appointed signal the orchestra struck up a one-step and at that irresistible summons the boys began a mad rush to secure partners.

"Oh, I didn't know it would be like this," murmured Jessie.

"Isn't it wonderful?" cried Lucile, and the next instant a voice at her elbow pleaded, "Give me this dance, will you, Lucy?" and she looked up into Jack's smiling face.

An answering smile flashed out. "Will I?" she cried, and led the way, Phil and Jessie following.

Another instant and she was being whirled away on Jack's arm, and Jack, who had won renown for his dancing among his New York a.s.sociates, thought he had never danced with anyone so lovely and so exquisitely graceful as this friend of Jessie's.

"You dance wonderfully," was Jack's comment. "Anybody could tell you love it."

"Oh, I do," said Lucile, fervently. "There's nothing like it."

"Nor you," said Jack, and he believed it.

The girls never forgot that night. A new world seemed to open before them--a world they never knew existed. A world filled with bright lights and music, where every one danced and laughed and was thrillingly and unbelievably joyful.

And Lucile, who had never dreamed of anything like this, suddenly found herself the very center of attraction. The crowd was always thickest about her and Jessie and Evelyn, and she was so deluged with requests for the next dance that her order was filled in no time and Jack had all he could do to squeeze in two numbers at the very end.

Some of the boys, to be perfectly frank, quite a few, were awkward and stepped on the toes of her dainty little white pumps until they were very nearly black, but she was so happy as to be absolutely oblivious of such trifles, while the awkward youths fell entirely under the spell of her sparkling, fun-filled eyes and the merry, bubbling laugh that seemed to overflow from sheer joy.

Once Jessie managed to whisper to her, "Miss--Mrs. Wescott didn't say she was going to have such a wonderful affair as this. Were you in the secret, Lucy?"

"No; there wasn't any secret. Our guardian just did it as a splendid surprise, the dear," said Lucile, and her eyes traveled to where her guardian and her husband were standing with a group of older people who had come later in the evening to enjoy the fun and to help the young Wescotts do the chaperoning.

"She is all right," agreed Jessie. "And doesn't Jack Wescott look splendid? I believe he's handsomer now than he was in the country."

"He is fine looking," Lucile admitted, grudgingly. "Just the same, I'll never quite forgive him."

Jack took Lucile into dinner. It required skillful manoeuvering on his part and he never could tell afterward how it happened, but the fact remains that he finally succeeded in extricating her from the mob and started with her toward the dining-room.