ked heaven for his pure,
clean manliness.

But in a vastly different way the next day was almost as much of a
nightmare. Lydia's father and mother were temporarily out of town and
their at least fairly satisfactory cook was enjoying her vacation at an
undiscoverable address. Lydia was cut off from asking her sister to come
to her aid by the fact that Paul had prevailed upon her to omit Marietta
and her husband from her guests. "If you won't give but one, we've just
_got_ to invite the important ones," he had said. "Your sister can take
dinner with us any day, and you know her husband _isn't_ the most--"

Lydia had picked up in the school of necessity a fair knowledge of
cooking, for which she had discovered in herself quite a liking; but she
had been too constantly in social demand to have the leisure for
advancing far into culinary lore, and she now found herself dismayed
before the elaborate menu that Ellen had planned, for which the
materials were gathered together. She was still shaken with the emotions
of the day before, and subject to sudden giddy, sick turns, which,
although lasting but an instant, left her enormously fatigued.

She went furiously at the task before her, beginning by simplifying the
dinner as much as she dared and could with the materials at hand, and
struggling with the dishes she was obliged to retain. For years
afterward, the sight of chicken salad affected her to acute nausea. The
inexperienced and careless little second girl lost her head in the
crisis, and had to be repeatedly calmed and assured that all that would
be asked of her would be to serve the dinner to the waiters for whom
Lydia had arranged hastily by telephone with Endbury's leading caterer.
Ellen had planned to serve the meal with the help of a waitress friend
or two, without other outside help; a feature of the occasion that had
met with Paul's hearty approval. He told Lydia that those palpably
hired-for-the-occasion nigger waiters were very bad form, and belonged
to a phase of Endbury's social gaucheries as outgrown now as charade
parties. But now, of course, nothing else was possible.

In the intervals of cooking, Lydia left her makeshift help in the
kitchen, to see that nothing burned, and in a frenzy of activity flew at
some of the manifold things to be done to prepare the house for the
festivity. She swept and wiped up herself the expansive floors of the
two large parlors, set the rooms in order, dusted the innumerable