“Help yourselves,” said Hilary, turning to the book-shelves and then passing a box of chocolates which had reposed there, having arrived from Aunt Hilary that morning. “One chocolate and a pickle is my limit,” Avalon decided, and turned her back on the table to enjoy those delicacies. “We must save our appetites for the chicken. We can buy candy, but where can we ever get chicken like that?” Avalon, long over her homesickness, was almost as full of life as Isabel. “Now for the cocoa, Avalon,—I’ll help.” Cathalina’s housewifely instincts supplied what experience lacked and she found that she liked to fuss around after this fashion. Then the guests began to arrive. Diane Percy, Helen Paget, Lilian North, Betty Barnes, Grace Barnard, Eloise Winthrop and two newer friends, Juliet Howe and Pauline Tracy, came in, one or two at a time. Juliet and Pauline, like Hilary, were “out” for basketball. Both were active, athletic girls. Pauline, known as “Polly”, was a plump, rather solid looking girl, with round cheeks, full, pleasant mouth, quantities of long black hair, steady grey eyes, and strong, capable looking hands, equally efficient for basketball, tennis, and rowing, or for driving, and cooking for hungry cowboys on the ranch from which she came. “She can do even more than Hilary, Betty says,” wrote Cathalina to her mother. Cathalina had never met a girl just like Pauline, and was much interested in everything about her. Juliet was known as Polly’s Shadow, partly because of their intimacy. She was almost Polly’s twin in complexion, hair and eyes, but was tall and thin, with long, slender face. Swiftness and general activity were her particular recommendations for basketball. Grace came in the dress which she had worn to dinner and was sent back by Isabel for a kimono. “Nobody can come without a wedding garment,” cried she, picking up a last piece of oiled paper to tuck in the waste basket, and bringing a cushion for the wooden box, which she had set on end. “Come one, come all!” “All right, kiddie,” said Grace, looking around with amusement at the gay garments, “I’ll be glad enough to get into one.” “Now excuse me just a minute while I read my letter. I can’t wait any longer. I was not expecting to find one in the box or I would have unpacked it before. You can pass the candy and pickles again, girls, as an appetizer. Grace will be back in a minute.” So Hilary ran into the bedroom, carrying her precious birthday letter with its words of praise for past days and blessings and good cheer for the days to come. She also opened a second package from Aunt Hilary, taking out a silk workbag, all fitted out with scissors, new thimble and all the accessories. “Look, girls,” she said, going back to her guests, “this is one thing that we did not get ready last summer. I brought my old work box.”