Grace Harlowes Return to Overton Campus | Page 9

Grace,
surveying the living-room with anxious eyes. "Oh, my motto. It must
hang directly above the archway."
"Where is it?" asked Elfreda. "We have time to put it up before we go
to luncheon, and plenty of skilled laborers." She cast a laughing glance
at Tom.
"It isn't made yet," confessed Grace. "Eva Allen's brother, who is an
artist, is illuminating one for me."
"What is your motto, Grace?" asked Tom interestedly.
"'Blessed are they that have found their work,'" repeated Grace, her
eyes on the spot where she intended the precious motto to hang. Mrs.
Gray had walked on into the hall, so there was only one pair of eyes to
see the sudden tightening of Tom's lips and the look of wistfulness
which crept into his face, and that pair of eyes belonged to Elfreda.
"He cares a whole lot more for Grace than she cares for him," was
Elfreda's quick appraisal. "At heart, Grace is still a little girl, and will
be for a long time to come. I hope when she does wake up it won't be
another prince who will do the awakening."

CHAPTER IV
THE SECRET SESSION
"I feel more as though I were getting ready for a funeral than about to
give a dinner for the Eight Originals," sighed Grace Harlowe, as she
joined her mother on the shady front porch, a little white and gold work
bag, which Miss Southard had brought her from Paris, swinging from
her arm. "I can't realize that, within the next week, Nora and Jessica are
actually going to become Mrs. Hippy Wingate and Mrs. Reddy Brooks.
It seems ridiculous. Why it's only yesterday that Jessica's hair hung
down her back in two braids, and Nora wore curls and short dresses."
"I can't imagine Hippy in the role of a dignified bridegroom," smiled
Mrs. Harlowe. "He is far more likely to convulse the wedding party and
upset the whole solemn service than to conduct himself with strict
propriety."
"He insists that he will cover himself with glory if Reddy doesn't look
at him, and Reddy insists that he will sit and stare him out of
countenance. David is to be Hippy's best man and Tom Gray Reddy's,
while Jessica is to be Nora's maid of honor and Nora Jessica's matron
of honor. She's to be married first, you know. Mabel, Anne, Miriam
Nesbit, Eleanor Savelli and I are to be the bridesmaids at both
weddings," went on Grace. "We'll have a reunion of all our friends. The
Gibsons are at home, Judge Putnam and his sister are coming down
earlier from the Adirondacks; then there are Eleanor and her father,
Miss Nevin and the Southards. Every one who has played an active part
in our home lives will be on hand to see the girls married."
"But how can Nora go away on a wedding journey and be Jessica's
matron of honor, too?" asked Mrs. Harlowe.
"She and Jessica went over that point a dozen times. You see Nora's
wedding takes place in the morning. She is going to have a wedding
breakfast, then she and Hippy will go to the mountains for a week.
They will return to Oakdale on the day of Jessica's wedding, and leave
for a long trip west the next morning. That was the best way they could

carry out a compact they made last June to serve as maids of honor for
each other."
Mrs. Harlowe listened to Grace's flow of eager talk with a smile of
content on her fine face. To her fond eyes Grace looked absurdly
immature in her simple frock of white dotted swiss. She was secretly
glad that Overton, rather than marriage, had claimed her alert,
self-reliant daughter for another year. Like every other mother she
wished some day to see Grace happily settled in a home of her own, but
she preferred to think of that someday as being still far distant.
Grace took out of her bag a guest towel she was embroidering. It was
the last of the half dozen towels she had worked for Jessica's hope chest.
She was not fond of needlework. She preferred to spend her spare time
playing golf and tennis, or riding and walking. This, as well as the
hemstitched table cloth and napkins she had completed for Nora, was a
labor of love. Now as she bent painstakingly over her work, she smiled
to herself and wove a tender thread of loyalty and love into the pattern.
A long clear trill caused her to raise her head quickly and spring to her
feet with, "Here they are, at last!" She ran to meet them.
Three girls, or rather three young women, came loitering through the
gate and up the walk, laughing gayly at something the girl in the center