low. I surely can't, because, you see, they might be here any
minute--any single minute--and nothing done yet, not even the table set.
Mrs. Ford, you better cut the bread. Here's a lot of it in a tin box,
and a knife with it, sharp enough to cut a feller's head off. You best
not touch it, Helena, you're so sort of clumsy with things. Now I'm off
to boil 'tatoes and fry chicken!"

It was impossible to retain gloomy forebodings while Alfy's cheerful
tongue was running on at this rate, and as she left the living-room for
the kitchen at the rear both Lady Gray and Helena were laughing, partly
at their own awkwardness at the tasks assigned them as well as at her
glib remarks.

"I never set a table in my life!" cried Helena, in glee.

"And I never sliced a loaf of bread!" said Gray Lady; "though I'll admit
it is time I learned. Indeed, I've never had a home, you know, and I'm
looking forward to my housekeeping as eagerly as a child to her
playhouse."

"I'm wondering what the landlady will say, when she finds how we've
invaded her pantry," continued Helena, carefully arranging the coarse
stone-china upon the oilcloth covered tables. She had begun very
reluctantly but found that the labor was a delightful relief from worry,
and, with the good sense she possessed, now went on with it as
painstakingly as if she expected a fashionable and critical company.
Indeed, her first table-setting, copied, as near as she could remember,
from the careful appointments of her own mother's board, was to be an
object lesson to others besides herself.

For presently there was the sound of voices in the kitchen; Alfaretta's,
of course, with another equally gay and girlish.

Mattie Roderick had slept lightly. She had been excited over the arrival
of the Ford party in the first place, and doubly so from the later
events of the night. So as she lay sleepless and listening, she heard
the rattle of cooking things in the kitchen below and soon the odor of
frying. With a little grumble she got up and put on the few garments she
had discarded.

"It can't be near morning yet. I don't see what's set Ma to cooking,
'less they're on the road back and nigh starved. One thing I know! I
shan't marry no tavern-keeper! It's nothin' but fry, roast, bake, an'
bile, the hull endurin' time. I'm goin' to quit and go east fur as
Denver, anyhow, soon's I get my age. I'd like to look same's them girls
do, and they ain't no prettier 'n me. It's only their clothes