"Wal, I guess Freedom folks never saw the like before at Happy House, leastways not sence the old missus was alive," the old man had excitedly answered. "You _bet_ old Webb'll be thar!" Nancy knew that as each invitation was delivered at each door there would go with it an excited account of the strange "sociable" that could include the Hopworths, and his added opinion that "thet gal'd sartin'ly started things happenin' at Happy House." The smithy's son was engaged to help Jonathan cut the grass, weed the gardens and clip the borders, under Nancy's direction. So that, while amazing changes were going on within the house, changes equally startling were transforming the garden. Old Jonathan straightened more than once to view with pride the results of their work. "This garden used to be the pride of the Island," he muttered, seeing in its restored trimness something of its old-time beauty. "But it's young hands that's needed." "It's beautiful, _now_," Nancy had declared. "It's the loveliest garden I ever saw, Jonathan," and she thought of Nonie's quaint words: "Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!" Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful, and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected in the expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them. "That's life," reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing. "It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or not beautiful!" They had worked late; the long shadows of the afternoon danced in lacy patterns over the gray walls of the house. Nancy, watching them, thought of that first disappointment she had felt upon viewing Happy House. Then it had seemed an ugly pile of stones, severely lined. Now it was more like a breathing Thing. It had sheltered and seen shaped so many lives; it held a future, too; it must stand protectingly for others after Aunt Milly and Aunt Sabrina had gone! It had, now, with its blinds fastened back, an awakened, expectant look, as of eyes suddenly opened after a long, long sleep. Then into Nancy's happy meditations flashed the disturbing thought that nothing about the garden or the house belonged in any way to her! "It's just _like_ me to forget," she declared aloud, shouldering her hoe and turning toward the carriage barn. "And like me to get fond of it all!" "Anyway, Nonie'll have her party, and even if there isn't a harp and a velvet train there'll be lots to eat or B'lindy's name isn't B'lindy. I wonder," and Nancy addressed the distant outline of the Judson's barns, "how Peter Hyde'll _ever_ act at a tea-party!" CHAPTER XVIII THE PARTY Very early, on the morning of the day of the party, Nancy and Aunt Milly and B'lindy and Jonathan and Nonie and Davy and Peter Hyde, each, scanned a sunny, cloudless sky with relief and joy. "Well, it isn't going to rain, anyway," each thought.