s, the one smoking his cigar, the
other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
_Chautauquan_. Howard and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.

The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with
them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
made them take their baths regularly, reestablished peace between them
in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.

It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.

Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.

"Mamma and I are going upstairs to read," explained Mr. Ravis. "It's
some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour."

"I think it's Mr. Haight," said Turner's mother. "Ask him to stay to
tea."

"Well," said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
"I will, but you know we never have anything to speak of for Sunday
evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
when she waits on the table."

It _was_ young Haight. Turner was ve