Mrs. Crowe relaxed a little for the first tired minute of her day. Sunday dinner was nearly over, and though, in one way, the best meal in the week for her because all her children were sure to be at home, it was apt to be pure purgatory on a hot day, with Sheba dawdling and grumbling and Rosalind spilling pea-soup on her Sunday dress, and Aunt Elsie's deafness increased by the weather to the point of mild imbecility.

She had been a little afraid today, especially with two guests and the grandchildren rampant after church, and the extra leaf in the table that squeezed Colonel Crowe almost into the sideboard and herself nearly out of the window and made the serving of a meal a series of passings of over-hot plates from hand to hand, exposed to the piracies of Jane Ellen. But it had gone off better than she could have hoped. Colonel Crowe had not absent-mindedly begun to serve vegetables with a teaspoon, Aunt Elsie had not dissolved in tears and tottered away from the table at some imagined rudeness of Dickie's, and Jane Ellen had not once had a chance to take off her drawers.

“Ice tea!” said the avid voice of Jane Ellen in her ear. “Ice tea!”

Mrs. Crowe filled the glass and submitted a request for “please” mechanically. She wondered, rather idly, if she would spend her time in purgatory serving millions of Jane Ellens with iced tea.

“Ahem!” That was Colonel Crowe. “But you should have known us in the days of our greatness, Mrs. Severance. When I was king of Estancia—”

“I'd rather have you like this, Colonel Crowe, really. I've always wanted big families and never had one to live in—”

“Heard from Nancy recently, Oliver?” from Margaret, slightly satiric.

“Why yes, Margie, now and then. Not as often as you've heard from Stu Winthrop probably but—”

“Motha, can I have some suga on my booberrish? Motha, can I have some suga on my booberrish? Motha—peesh!”

“Oh, hush a minute, Rosalind dear. I don't know, Oliver. I'll speak to Mr. Field about it if you like. I should think they'd take little sketches like a couple of those Nancy showed you—though they aren't quite smart-alecky enough for 'Mode'—” “Grandfather, Grandfather! How old would you be if you were as old as Methusaleh? Are you older than he is? Grandfather!”

Entrance and exit of a worried Sheba with the empty dish of blueberries, marred only by Jane Ellen's sudden cries of “Stop thief!”

Mrs. Crowe tried to think a little ahead. Tomorrow. Ice. Butter. Laundry. Oliver's breakfast early again. Louise—poor Louise—two years and a half since Clifford Lychgate died. How curious life was; how curious and careless and inconsecutive. The thought of how much she hoped Oliver's novel would succeed and the question as to whether the Thebes grocer who delivered by motor-truck would be cheaper than the similar Melgrove bandit in the long run mixed uneasily in her mind.

Rosalind had seemed droopy that morning—more green crab-apples probably. Aunt Elsie's gout. Oliver's marriage—she had been so relieved about Nancy ever since she had met her, though it had been hard to reconcile domestic virtues with Nancy's bobbed hair. She would make Oliver happy, though, and that was the main thing. She was really sweet—a sweet girl. Long engagements. Too bad, too bad. Something must be done about the stair carpet, the children were tearing it to pieces. “Ice tea! Ice tea!”

“No, Jane Ellen.”

“Yash.”

“No, darling.”

“Peesh yash?”

“No. Now be a good little girl and run out and play quietly, not right in the middle of the broiling sun.”

“And so Lizzie said, 'Very well, but if I do take that medicine my death will be wholly on your responsibility!'” with a sense of climax.

“But I really would like to, Mrs. Severance, if you can ever spare the time.”

Ted and Louise's friend seemed to be getting along very well. That was nice—so often Oliver's friends and Louise's didn't. It seemed odd that Mrs. Severance should be working on “Mode”—surely a girl of her obvious looks and intelligence left with no children to support—some nice man—A lady, too, by her voice, though there was a trifle of something—

She only hoped Mrs. Severance didn't think them all too crowded and noisy. It was a little hard on the three children to have such an—intimate—home when they brought friends.

“I think we'd better have coffee out on the porch, don't you?” That meant argument with Sheba later but an hour's cool and talk without having to shout across the dear little children was worth the argument.

Everybody got up, Ted being rather gallant to Mrs. Severance. Oliver looked worried today, worried and tired. She hoped it wasn't about Nancy and the engagement. What a miserable thing money was to make so much difference.

“Mrs. Severance—”

“Mr. Billett—”

Louise's friend was certainly attractive. That wonderful red-gold hair—“setter color” her sister had always called it of her own. She must write her sister. Mrs. Severance—an odd name. She rather wished, though, that her face wouldn't turn faintly hard like that sometimes.

“No, Dickie. No chocolate unless your mother says you can have it. No, Rosalind, if mother says not, you certainly cannot go over and play at the Rogers',—they have a paralytic grandmother who is very nervous.”

Well, that was over. And now, for a few brief instants there would be quiet and a chance to relax and really see something of Oliver. Mrs. Crowe started moving slowly towards the door. Ted and Mrs. Severance blocked the way, talking rather intimately, she thought, for people who had only known each other a few hours; but then that was the modern way. Then Ted saw her and seemed to wake up with a jump from whatever mild dream possessed him, and Mrs. Severance turned toward her.

“It's so comfortable being out here, always,” she said very naturally and kindly, but Mrs. Crowe did not reply at once to the pretty speech. Instead she flushed deeply and bent over something small and white on the chair with the dictionary in it that had been next to hers. Jane Ellen had finally succeeded in taking off her drawers.