whisper all the gossip you can think
of about one another, but every one is to be amusing! Also every one is
to help with the dinner--nothing formal and nothing serious. We may all
be bankrupt to-morrow, divorced or dead, but to-night we will be
gay--that is the invariable rule of the house!"

Immediately a nervous laughter broke out and the company chattering
began to scatter through the rooms.

Mrs. Kildair, stopping in her bedroom, donned a Watteaulike cooking
apron, and slipping her rings from her fingers fixed the three on her
pincushion with a hatpin.

"Your rings are beautiful, dear, beautiful," said the low voice of Maude
Lille, who with Harris and Mrs. Cheever were in the room.

"There's only one that is very valuable," said Mrs. Kildair, touching
with her thin fingers the ring that lay uppermost, two large diamonds,
flanking a magnificent sapphire.

"It is beautiful--very beautiful," said the journalist, her eyes
fastened to it with an uncontrollable fascination. She put out her
fingers and let them rest caressingly on the sapphire, withdrawing them
quickly as though the contact had burned them.

"It must be very valuable," she said, her breath catching a little. Mrs.
Cheever, moving forward, suddenly looked at the ring.

"It cost five thousand six years ago," said Mrs. Kildair, glancing down
at it. "It has been my talisman ever since. For the moment, however, I
am cook; Maude Lille, you are scullery maid; Harris is the chef, and we
are under his orders. Mrs. Cheever, did you ever peel onions?"

"Good Heavens, no!" said Mrs. Cheever, recoiling.

"Well, there are no onions to peel," said Mrs. Kildair, laughing. "All
you'll have to do is to help set the table. On to the kitchen!"

Under their hostess's gay guidance the seven guests began to circulate
busily through the rooms, laying the table, grouping the chairs, opening
bottles, and preparing the material for the chafing dishes. Mrs. Kildair
in the kitchen ransacked the ice box, and with her own hands chopped the
_fines herbes_, shredded the chicken and measured the cream.

"Flanders, carry this in carefully," she said, her hands in a towel.
"Cheever, stop watching your wife and put the salad bowl on the table.
Everything ready, Harris? All right. Every one sit down. I'll be right
in."

She went into her bedroom, and divesting herself of her apron hung it in
the closet. Then going to her dressing table she drew the hatpin from
the pincushion and