Annie Johnston - Mary Ware in Texas

The rehearsal was a short one. All that the famous visiting singer wanted was to make sure, since her own accompanists had failed her, that the local ones were satisfactory. It came to an end just as Mary began her dessert, and almost instantly it seemed Gay was at her elbow, and seating herself in the chair beside her.

"Isn't it a shame I haven't more than two minutes to stay," she began. "This is like having Warwick Hall and Lloydsboro Valley rolled into one, to find somebody who loves them both as much as I do. I could talk a week without stopping about each place, and ask a thousand questions, but I'm due at a luncheon out on Government Hill by the time the next car can put me there. Immediately after that is over we're all going to the polo tournament. All during rehearsal I kept trying to think of some way I could arrange to see you, and there's only one. You've simply got to come home with me to stay all night. Go on and finish your shopping, and I'll come down for you after the tournament and meet you anywhere you say."

The invitation, as cordial as it was sudden, was gladly accepted and Gay exclaimed, "Oh, I'm so delighted to think I've found you at last! You've no idea how often you were quoted the summer I was in the Valley. Lloyd and Betty and the old Colonel and Dr. Alex Shelby were always saying 'as little Mary Ware says.' I feel as if I'd known you from babyhood up."

"And I know all about your past," laughed Mary. She was about to mention several incidents to prove her claim, when Gay stopped her by a glance at the clock and the question: "Wouldn't you like to see the dress parade at the Post this evening? Most people do, and it's well worth seeing."

Would she like it! Mary's beaming face answered the question before her usually ready tongue found a word, and Gay smiled as she hastily drew on her gloves and picked up her violin case.

"I'd like to keep you all to myself to-night," she said, "but I do want you to meet some of the people that Kitty Walton liked best when she visited me last year. I'll pick up Roberta and Lieutenant Boglin to take dinner with us if I can get them. They're always so nice to my Warwick Hall friends. They were both wild about Kitty. Well, at quarter to five, then, I'll meet you – where?"

Finally the glove counter at Joske's was agreed upon as a meeting place, and with a friendly pat on the shoulder in passing, Gay hurried away to keep her engagement. Smiling blissfully after her, Mary whispered to herself with one of her old childish wriggles of pleasure, "And Bogey , too."

Promptly at the time agreed upon, Mary took her station by the glove counter, almost sure that Gay would be late. It was one of the Warwick Hall traditions that something tragic always happened to Gay's clothes at the last moment, to delay her departure. But she had scarcely seated herself and deposited her suit-case on the floor beside her when the door opened and Gay came breezily into the store. Her hat was awry and her hair disheveled.

"On time for once," she exclaimed triumphantly with a glance at the clock. "But I couldn't have been if Roberta hadn't come to the rescue. She brought me down in their carriage. It's Roberta Mayrell," she explained, as they made their way as rapidly as possible down the crowded aisle.

"She isn't really one of the Army girls, but she lives just outside the Post and has always been counted in everything there, since she was old enough to talk. I've been telling her all about you on the way down."

"Well, I hope she'll find me as interesting as the alligators," began Mary, remembering the speech she had overheard from the hotel balcony. But Gay was stopping to apologize to an old lady whom she had bumped into, and did not hear the remark. The next moment they were outside and at the curbstone, where a carriage drawn by two Kentucky horses was in waiting, and Roberta was stepping down with outstretched hands to welcome her.

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