THE WEEK-END GUEST BY MARIE VAN VORST THE WEEK-END GUEST[1] By MARIE VAN VORST From the room where Patricia Hereford’s wedding gifts were displayed, the Long Island Sound was visible, and it lay in the distance on this October day, blue as a patch of cornflowers. Down at the dock the yacht waited to take the master of the house to town. Underneath the window in kilts, bare legs, bagpipes and all, a Highland shepherd, imported by the lady of the house from his native heather because he was picturesque, watched his sheep and was homesick to the bone! The twenty-five Southdown sheep were astoundingly clean and moved about in patches on the flawless lawn. Now and again the wretched piper played a few Scotch melodies as he was paid to do, and the lady of the house listened to the piper’s tunes with her pencil on her lips as she prepared for the detective a list of the wedding presents. “What melody is Sandy playing now, Nell?” One of the bridesmaids, a girl who was staying in the house, perched nonchalantly on a table, a notebook and a pencil in her hands. Miss Moore was helping Mrs. Hereford list the wedding presents, and presumably Miss Cynthia Moore was thinking of her own wedding, when it should come to pass, as bridesmaids will! She dictated to Mrs. Hereford. “Number one thousand and six, Nell, a pigskin purse from Eric Johnson. Pat’s own chauffeur, isn’t he?” “Yes,” said Mrs. Hereford, “nice of him and in perfectly good taste.” Miss Moore swung to and fro a foot encased in a correct golf brogue. She was the champion woman golfer of the Eastern States, and came downstairs in the morning dressed for golf, ready for her game. Indeed she said she only put on evening dress in order to keep out of social jail! “That’s the nicest thing I have heard you say about any of the presents, Nell! _If_ people who sent them could only hear you!” The lady of the house shrugged. “I have always wondered why certain frightful things were manufactured and now I know they are for wedding gifts. The boring part is that over a thousand people will have to be lied to and thanked! Poor Patricia!” There they were, over a thousand wedding presents! Patricia Hereford was a popular débutante and her father the best host on Long Island. Everything that indifferent taste could select and money pay for, from Hereford’s own gift of diamonds to the modest pigskin purse, was here displayed. One of the most truly beautiful things was a pink Persian prayer rug of rich soft tones, a Persian proverb in delicate lettering running around the border. It hung on the wall opposite the pearls and valuable jewels. Two rooms on the second floor of the big country house had been consecrated to this exhibition, and the presents were to be seen by the guests on the following afternoon, after the wedding.