part in it; but she had kept pace,
with Cynthia Whitwell's help, in the housekeeping. As Jackson had
cautiously felt his way to the needs of their public in the enlargement
and rearrangement of the hotel, the two housewives had watchfully
studied, not merely the demands, but the half-conscious instincts of
their guests, and had responded to them simply and adequately, in the
spirit of Jackson's exterior and structural improvements. The walls of
the new rooms were left unpapered and their floors uncarpeted; there
were thin rugs put down; the wood-work was merely stained. Westover
found that he need not to ask especially for some hot dish at night;
there was almost the abundance of a dinner, though dinner was still at
one o'clock.

Mrs. Durgin asked him the first day if he would not like to go into the
serving-room and see it while they were serving dinner. She tried to
conceal her pride in the busy scene--the waitresses pushing in through
one valve of the double-hinged doors with their empty trays, and out
through the other with the trays full laden; delivering their dishes
with the broken victual at the wicket, where the untouched portions were
put aside and the rest poured into the waste; following in procession
along the reeking steamtable, with its great tanks of soup and
vegetables, where, the carvers stood with the joints and the trussed
fowls smoking before them, which they sliced with quick sweeps of their
blades, or waiting their turn at the board where the little plates with
portions of fruit and dessert stood ready. All went regularly on amid a
clatter of knives and voices and dishes; and the clashing rise and fall
of the wire baskets plunging the soiled crockery into misty depths,
whence it came up clean and dry without the touch of finger or towel.
Westover could not deny that there were elements of the picturesque
in it, so that he did not respond quite in kind to Jeff's
suggestion--"Scene for a painter, Mr. Westover."

The young fellow followed satirically at his mother's elbow, and made a
mock of her pride in it, trying to catch Westover's eye when she led him
through the kitchen with its immense range, and introduced him to a new
chef, who wiped his hand on his white apron to offer it to Westover.

"Don't let him get away without seeing the laundry, mother," her son
jeered at a final air of absent-mindedness in her, and she defiantly
accepted his challenge.

"Jeff's mad because he wasn't consulted,"