e the
colored supplement of the paper. I didn't have any word from you, Miss
Paget," he went on, "so I took the chance of finding you. And your
mother has assured me that I will not put her out by staying to have
luncheon with you."

"Oh, that's nice!" Margaret said mechanically, trying to dislodge
Robert from the most comfortable chair by a significant touch of her
fingers on his small shoulder. Robert perfectly understood that she
wanted the chair, but continued in absorbed study of the comic
supplement, merely wriggling resentfully at Margaret's touch.
Margaret, at the moment, would have been glad to use violence on the
stubborn, serene little figure. When he was finally dislodged, she sat
down, still flushed from her walk and the nervousness Doctor Tenison's
arrival caused her, and tried to bring the conversation into a normal
channel. But an interruption occurred in the arrival of Harry and
Julie in the runabout; the little boys swarmed down to examine it.
Julie, very pretty, with a perceptible little new air of dignity, went
upstairs to freshen hair and gown, and Harry, pushing his straw hat
back the better to mop his forehead, immediately engaged Doctor
Tenison's attention with the details of what sounded to Margaret
like a particularly uninteresting operation, which he had witnessed
the day before.

Utterly discouraged, and acutely wretched, Margaret presently slipped
away, and went into the kitchen, to lend a hand with the dinner
reparations if help was needed. The room presented a scene if possible
a little more confused than that of the day before, and was certainly
hotter. Her mother, flushed and hurried, in a fresh but rather
unbecoming gingham, was putting up a cold supper for the younger boys,
who, having duly attended to their religious duties, were to take a
long afternoon tramp, with a possible interval of fishing. She
buttered each slice of the great loaf before she cut it, and lifted it
carefully on the knife before beginning the next slice. An opened pot
of jam stood at her elbow. A tin cup and the boys' fishing-gear lay on
a chair. Theodore and Duncan themselves hung over these preparations;
never apparently helping themselves to food, yet never with empty
mouths. Blanche, moaning "The Palms" with the insistence of one who
wishes to show her entire familiarity with a melody, was at the range.

Roast veal, instead of the smothered chickens her mother had so often,
and cooked so deliciously, a mo