The lawyer was looking surprised, but he rose briskly to the level of the situation, and greeted the young girl with ready grace. "Your sister's daughter, I conclude," he said, smilingly, to Mrs. Field.

Mrs. Field set her mouth hard. She looked defiantly at him and said not one word. There was a fierce resolve in her heart that, come what would, she would not tell this last lie, and deny her daughter before her very face.

But the lawyer did not know she was silent. Not having heard any response, with the vanity of a deaf man, he a.s.sumed that she had given one, and so concealed his uncertainty.

"Yes, so I thought," said he, and went on flourishingly in his track of gracious reception.

Lois kept her eyes fixed on his like some little timid animal which suspects an enemy, and watches his eyes for the first impetus of a spring. Once or twice she said, "Yes, sir," faintly.

"Your niece does not look very strong," Mr. Tuxbury said to Mrs.

Field.

"She ain't been feelin' very well this spring. I've been considerable worried about her," she answered, with harsh decision.

"Ah, I am very sorry to hear that. Well, she will soon recuperate if she stays here. Elliot is considered a very healthy place. We shall soon have her so hearty and rosy that her old friends won't be able to recognize her." He bowed with a smiling flourish to Lois.

Her lips trembled with a half-smile in response, but she looked more frightened than ever.

"Now, Mrs. Maxwell," said the lawyer, "you and your niece must positively remain and dine with us to-day, can't you?"

"I'm afraid it will put your sister out."

"Oh, no, indeed." The lawyer, however, had a slightly nonplussed expression. "She will be delighted. I will run over to the house, then, and tell her that you will stay, shall I not?"

"I hate to make her extra work," said Mrs. Field. That was her rural form of acceptance.

"You will not, I a.s.sure you. Don't distress yourself about that, Mrs.

Maxwell."

Nevertheless, he was quite ill at ease as he traversed the yard. In his life with his sister there were exigencies during which he was obliged to descend from his platform of superiority. He foresaw the approach of one now.

Dinner was already served when he entered the dining-room, and his sister was setting the chairs around the table. They kept no servant.

"They are going to stay to dinner, I expect," he remarked, in a appealingly confidential tone.

His sister faced him with a jerk. She was very red from bending over the kitchen fire. "Who's goin' to stay? What do you mean, Daniel?"

"Why, Mrs. Maxwell and her niece."

"Her niece? I didn't know she had any niece. How did she get here?"

"She came this noon; followed along after her aunt, I suppose. I don't think she knew she was coming. She acted kind of surprised, I thought."

"You don't mean they're comin' in here to dinner?"

"I couldn't very well help asking them, you know." His tone was soft and conciliatory, and he kept a nervous eye upon his sister's face.

"Couldn't help askin' 'em! I ruther guess I could 'a' helped askin'

'em!"

"Jane, I hadn't any idea they'd stay."

"Well, you've gone an' done it, that's all I've got to say. Here they didn't come last night, when I got all ready for 'em, an' now they're comin', an' everything we've got is a picked-up dinner; there ain't enough of anything to go round. Flora!"

Her daughter Flora came in from the kitchen, with the children, in blue gingham ap.r.o.ns, at her heels.

"What is it, mother?" said she.

"Nothin', only your uncle Daniel has asked that Maxwell woman an' her niece to dinner, an' they're goin' to stay."

"My goodness! there isn't a thing for dinner!" said Flora, with a half-giggle. She was so young and healthy and happy that she could still see the joke in an annoyance.

Her uncle looked at her beseechingly. "Can't you manage somehow?"

said he. "I'll go down to the store and buy something."

"Down to the store!" repeated his sister, contemptuously. "It's one o'clock now."

He looked at the kitchen clock, visible through the open door, and saw that it indicated half-past twelve, but he said nothing.

Flora was frowning reflectively, while her cheeks dimpled. "I tell you what I'll do, mother," said she. "I'll go over to Mrs. Bennett's and borrow a pie. I think we can get along if we have a pie."

"I ain't goin' round the neighborhood borrowin'; that ain't the way I'm accustomed to doin'."

"Land, mother! I'd just as soon ask Mrs. Bennett as not. She borrowed that bread in here the other night."

"There ain't enough steak to go round; there's jest that little piece we had left from yesterday, an' there ain't enough stew," said her mother, with persistent wrath.

"Well, if folks come in unexpectedly, they'll have to take what we've got and make the best of it." Flora tied a hat on over her light hair as she spoke. "I don't see any other way for them," she added, laughingly, going out of the door.

"It's all very well for folks to be easy," said her mother, with a sniff, "but when she's had as much as I've had, I guess she won't take it any easier than I do. I s'pose now I've got to take all these things off, an' put on a clean table-cloth."

"That one doesn't look very bad," ventured her brother, timidly.

"No, I shouldn't think it did! Look at that great coffee stain you got on it this mornin'! Havin' a couple of perfect strangers come in to dinner makes more work than a man knows anything about. Children, you take off the knives, an' pile 'em up on the other table. Be real careful."

"I wonder if the parlor's so I can ask them in there?" Mr. Tuxbury remarked, edging toward the door.

"I s'pose so. I ain't been in there this mornin'; I s'pose it's all right unless the children have been in an' cluttered it up."

"No, we ain't, gramma, we ain't," proclaimed the children in a shrill shout. They danced around the table, removing the knives and forks; their innocent, pinky faces were full of cherubic glee. This occasion was, metaphorically speaking, a whole flock of jubilant infantile larks for them. They loved company with all their souls, and they also felt always a pleasant t.i.tillation of their youthful spirits when they saw their grandmother in perturbation. Unless, indeed, they themselves were the cause of it, when it acquired a personal force which rendered it not so entertaining.

Soon, however, a remark of their grandmother's caused their buoyant spirits to realize that there was a force of gravitation for all here below.

"I don't know but you children will have to wait," said she.

There was an instantaneous wail of dismay, the pinky faces elongated, the blue eyes scowled sulkily. "Oh, gramma, we don't want to wait!

Can't we sit down with the others? Say, gramma, can't we? Can't we sit down with the others?"

"Of course you can sit down with the others. Don't make such a racket, children." That was their mother coming in, good-natured and triumphant, with the pie.