"Come up where?" Mrs. Richie said, idly. She was leaning forward, her
elbows on the table, watching the child eat. When he said, "To your
party to-night," she sat up in astonished dismay.
"My _what?_ David! Tell me--exactly. Who is coming? Oh, dear!"
she ended, tears of distress standing in her eyes.
David continued to eat his rice pudding. "Can I sit up till nine?"
Mrs. Richie pushed her chair back from the table, and caught her lower
lip between her teeth. What should she do? But even as she asked
herself the question, Dr. King stood, smiling, in the French window
that opened on to the lawn.
"May I come in?" he said.
The fact was, a misgiving had risen in William's mind; perhaps a
complete surprise would not be pleasant. Perhaps she would rather have
an idea of what was going to happen. Perhaps she might want to dress
up, or something. And so he dropped in to give a hint: "Half a dozen
of us are coming in tonight to say how-do-you-do," he confessed,
("Whew! she doesn't need to dress up," he commented inwardly.) The red
rose in her hair and her white cross-barred muslin with elbow sleeves
seemed very elegant to William. He was so lost in admiration of her
toilet, that her start of angry astonishment escaped him.
"Dr. King," said David, scraping up the sugar from his saucer, "is God
good because He likes to be, or because He has to be?"
"David," said William King, "you will be the death of me!"
"Because, if He likes to be," David murmured, "I don't see why He gets
praised; and if He has to be, why--"
"Dr.
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