ink of dining
here. It is extremely kind of you, but really I--"

Martha calmly interrupted. "It isn't kind at all," she said. "And
it isn't dinner, it is supper. If you don't stay I shall think it is
because you don't like baked beans. I may as well tell you," she added,
"that you will get beans and nothin' else over at Elmer Roger's. They
won't be as good as these, that's all. That isn't pride," she continued,
with a twinkle in her eye. "Anybody's beans are better than Elmer's,
they couldn't help bein'."

The visitor still hesitated. "Well, really, Miss Phipps," he said,
"I--Well, I should like to stay. I should, indeed. But, you see, my
chauffeur is outside waiting to take me over to the Roger's House."

Martha smiled. "Oh, no, he isn't," she said. "He is havin' his supper
in the kitchen now. Run along, Mr. Bangs, and you and your cousin hurry
down as soon as you can."

On the way upstairs Cabot asked a question.

"She is a 'reg'lar' woman, as the boys say," he observed. "I like her.
Does she always, so to speak, boss people like that?"

Galusha nodded, cheerfully. "When she thinks they need it," he replied.

"Humph! I understand now what you meant by saying she had taken charge
of you. Does she boss you?"

Another cheerful nod. "I ALWAYS need it," answered Galusha.

Martha, of course, presided at the supper table. Primmie did not sit
down with the rest. She ate in the kitchen with the Cabot chauffeur.
But she entered the dining room from time to time to bring in hot brown
bread or beans or cookies, or to change the plates, and each time she
did so she stared at Cousin Gussie with awe in her gaze. Evidently the
knowledge that the head of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot was sitting there
before her had impressed her hugely. It was from Cabot, Bancroft and
Cabot, so Primmie remembered, that Mr. Bangs had procured the mammoth
pile of bank notes which she had seen upon her mistress's center table.
She had never actually been told where those notes came from, but she
had guessed. And now the proprietor of the "money factory"--for that is
very nearly what it was in her imagination--was there, sitting at the
Phipps' 'dining table, eating the baked beans that she herself had
helped prepare. No wonder that Primmie was awe-stricken, no wonder
that she tripped over the mat corner and just escaped showering the
distinguished guest with a platterful of those very beans.

Mr. Cabot seemed to enjoy his supper hugely. He was jo