o eat
daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs,
broken in upon bits of butter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this
went on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milk
boiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over it
stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole
was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one
of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the
coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been
beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the
breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and
butter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the
cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery
things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held
them beside the stove, into its corner.

Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for
the day; and she came in with a little glass vase in her hand, in
which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the
white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and
the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the
three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and
reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before
which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had
recollected and brought down from the garret on Saturday. Barbara and
her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as
any bit of pretty play or pageant.

Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch
gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with
bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she "would be all
points," now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all
more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual.

After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it
put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was
something really delicate to see her scrape them clean, with a pliant
knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,--we had, in fact, a
palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own
dishes,--and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the
pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit
making tea for compa