"Oh, Audra, it's so exciting and romantic," Cecilia Holland said smiling at her friend. "He's very handsome."

Audra looked at Cecilia for a moment and then at the back of the departing surrey with her brother, Heath, driving. Yes, she guessed he was handsome. She realized how fully she had accepted him as her brother, she'd stop thinking about how he looked. Like Nick and Jarrod he just looked like himself.

"I don't think Margaret Dwyer thought he was at all that romantic," Audra said.

"Oh, did she say something?" Cecilia asked ready for a good gossip about one of her least favorite people. "Yesterday, I met her in the mercantile and she told me she thought that I was very fast to be wearing a red dress in the morning. Really, it was that old cotton dress. I wouldn't have worn it there at all, but mother needed sugar and sent me out."

Cecilia pouted and looked up at Audra through her eyelashes. It was a look the two girls had practiced with some determination the previous month, thinking it was very fetching and showed great sensitivity; so much more elegant than actually saying something wasn't nice. Just a small pout and a quick look through the eyelashes to indicate unhappiness.

"That's very good," Audra told her and returned the look with her own pout. Both girls laughed and putting their arms around each other's waists, began walking around to the back of the house.

"Mother said we could make our own tea and have it in the front room," Cecilia said proudly. "I made a pound cake yesterday for tea. It came out a little lopsided but it looks ever so nice and brown on the top."

"Are you making a cake for the party?" Audra asked.

"I was going to make the pound cake. I've made it four times in the last two weeks and I'm getting dreadfully tired of it. The stupid thing never seems to rise evenly." Cecilia forgot to pout prettily and just looked disgusted.

"I made cookies. Mother said a cake would be stale by Saturday. But I can help you with the pound cake," Audra offered, although she wasn't sure how much help she could actually be, as her last pound cake hadn't risen at all.

The two girls chattered away happily about what dresses they were wearing the next morning on the drive out to Susan Preston's farm and what dresses they would change into for the afternoon's actual party.

"Is your brother, Heath, coming to the party?" Cecilia asked returning to her earlier interest in Audra's new brother.

"No. The invitations went out before he came to the ranch. Also he's still not feeling too well. He's been sick. This is the first time Mother's actually allowed him to leave the ranch. But he's coming tomorrow to pick me up at Susan's and take me home after the party."

"Perhaps the Preston's will invite him in to have a piece of cake when he comes with the surrey," Cecilia smiled, Audra thought, a bit starry-eyed.

The two girls had no more then begun their tea when Cecilia's mother came bustling into the house. Audra didn't even have an opportunity to say hello before Mrs. Holland was inquiring after Heath.

Audra was surprised, but very pleased with this interest in her brother. Heath had been very concerned that the people in Stockton wouldn't approve of his living at the Barkleys, that they would hold his birth against him. Audra had assured him that there was no need to be concerned. He had just smiled when she told him this and she'd recognized that sort of know-it-all smile Nick got every time he thought he was so much older and wiser than she. So Audra was very pleased to be proven correct in Mrs. Holland. She was a real stickler for the "right thing" and if she was asking after Heath then he had nothing to worry about.

"Is your new brother here, Audra?"

"No, ma'am. He dropped me at the house and had to return home."

"I see." Mrs. Holland removed her gloves and her hat before saying anything else. "Did you have an opportunity to meet him Cecilia?"

"Yes, mother. He's really quite nice looking," Cecilia said smiling broadly at her mother.

"Did Audra introduce you?" Mrs. Holland asked, Audra thought rather sharply, giving her a very cold look

"No. That is, she would have, but he dropped her at the gate and left before I could get there," Cecilia said, her disappointment obvious.

"Quite right," Mrs. Holland nodded to Audra. "That showed very good sense on your part, Audra. Now, enough nonsense out of you Cecilia, have you girls finished your tea?"

When both girls quite properly said they were finished. Mrs. Holland instructed them to clear the table and bring out their sewing.

"We were going to go for a ride," Audra suggested, a tad tentatively. Mrs. Holland had always frightened her a little bit and she was still working her way around what good sense she had shown. She couldn't recall doing anything that would earn Mrs. Holland's approbation.

"I don't believe that would be at all suitable. It's very warm out. You may walk into town, however, if you would like. No further then the mercantile and back in an hour."

Neither girl felt terribly excited about this prospect but both recognized it was much more desirable than an afternoon of stitching under Mrs. Holland's exacting eye.