The children were to come in the afternoon and play outdoors with their
sleds and indoors with the books and games, eat cookies and cocoa and
depart with beautiful red and blue and yellow balloons. In the evening
the young men and women and the fathers and mothers were to gather in
the living room and play games and sing and maybe dance and lock at the
books and make lovely plans and admire everything. There would be
sandwiches and coffee for them, too. And Robin would make a little
speech, telling them that the House of Laughter was all theirs to do
what they wanted with it and that the key would always hang just behind
the shiny green trellis. Robin had demurred at this last detail,
shrinking in horror at the thought of a "speech," but Beryl had insisted
that she really must because she was a "Forsyth."
Then Robin wrote and sent to each of the Mill houses cards inviting them
to come to the House of Laughter on Saturday night.
And, everything ready, she counted a precious two hundred dollars left
in the heart-shaped box. That, with what she had not spent from her
ridiculously big allowance, seemed a fortune.
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