Folks can't help their
relations; it's their friends that tells the story."
Miss Deborah Bean had come to dinner.
With a sinking heart, Polly went on to the kitchen and sat down on
one edge of the table, to collect her ideas. If anything did go
wrong, she knew, from past experiences, that Miss Bean would not
hesitate to mention the fact. But nothing should go wrong; and as
Polly gave the roast of beef a vigorous push ovenward, she
resolved to do or die. When she went to bed that night, she felt
that she had very nearly done both, the doing and the dying.
In the first place, the fire obstinately refused to burn, and in
working over that, Polly entirely forgot her vegetables until some
time after they should have been put on to cook; so the dinner was
delayed for a long half-hour, while Polly was haunted by spectral
visions of her guests falling from their chairs, in the faintness
of slow starvation. At length all was ready, and leaving the girl
to take up the tomato soup which Polly regarded as her one
infallible dish, she ran up-stairs to dress herself and appear
before her expectant guests, with a flushed face and ruffled
curls.
If she had any misgivings as she marshalled her friends to the
table and pointed Miss Bean to an extra seat beside Florence, she
certainly concealed them with a tact worthy of an older
housekeeper.
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