I was g-g-going to ask J-jerrie to pl-play with m-me,' little Billy said, hopping around them, while Dick's face showed that he, too, would like the pleasure of playing with Jerrie, who was known to be an expert and seldom missed a ball.
Naturally, however, Marian Raymond, as a stranger, would fall to him, and they were soon paired off, Dick and Marian, Tom and Jerrie, Nina and Billy, Fred Raymond and Ann Eliza, who wore diamonds enough for a full dress party, and whose red hair was piled on the top of her head so loosely that the ends of it stuck out here and there like the streamers on a boat on gala days.

This careless style of dressing her hair, Ann Eliza affected, thinking it gave individuality to her appearance; and it certainly did attract general observation, her hair was so red and bushy.

Dick had stumbled and stammered dreadfully when confessing to his sister that he had invited the Peterkins, while Nina had drawn a long breath of dismay as she thought of presenting Ann Eliza and Billy to Marian Raymond, with her culture and aristocratic ideas.

Then she burst into a laugh and said, with her usual sweetness: 'Never mind, Dickie.

You could not do otherwise.