instruments. Upon her watchful resourcefulness hangs the success of a
dinner-party. But Missy, though a trifle fluttered, had felt no anxiety;
she knew so well just how Lady Chetwoode had managed these things.

The hostess must also, of course, direct the nutrimental as well as
the conversational process of the feast. She is served first, and takes
exactly the proper amount of whatever viand in exactly the proper way
and manipulates it with exactly the proper fork or knife or spoon. But
Missy had felt no anticipatory qualms.

She was possessed of a strange, almost a lightheaded feeling. Perhaps
the excitement of the day, the rush at the last, had something to do
with it. Perhaps the spectacle of the long, adorned table, the scent of
flowers, the sound of music, the dark eyes of Mr. Edward Brown who was
seated at her right hand.

(Dear old faithful Ben!--to think of how his devotion to tippling Tim
had brought Edward Brown into her life!)

She felt a stranger to herself. Something in her soared intoxicatingly.
The sound of her own gay chatter came to her from afar--as from a
stranger. Mr. Brown kept on looking at her.

The butler appeared, bringing the oyster cocktails (a genteel delicacy
possible in an inland midsummer thanks to the canning industry), and
proceeded to serve them with empressement.

The butler was really the climactic triumph of the event. And he was
Missy's own inspiration. She had been racking her brains for some way
to eliminate the undistinguished Marguerite, to conjure through the very
strength of her desire some approach to a proper servitor. If only they
had ONE of those estimable beings in Cherry vale! A butler, preferably
elderly, and "steeped in respectability" up to his port-wine nose; one
who would hover around the table, adjusting this dish affectionately and
straightening that, and who, whenever he left the room, left it with a
velvet step and an almost inaudible sigh of satisfaction...

And then, quite suddenly, she had hit upon the idea of "Snowball"
Saunders. Snowball had come to the house to borrow the Merriams'
ice-cream freezer. There was to be an informal "repast" at the Shriners'
hall, and Snowball engineered all the Shriners' gustatory festivities
from "repasts" to "banquets." Sometimes, at the banquets, he even wore a
dress suit. It was of uncertain lineage and too-certain present estate,
yet it was a dress suit. It was the recollection of the dress suit that
had given Mis