The custard was now cold, the bananas were stirred into it and they were put into the freezer, and ice and salt in the proportion of one third salt were packed round it. After it had stood a few minutes, Marta turned it for a quarter of an hour, when it was frozen.
Just as Molly was about to begin to write directions for the scalloped potatoes, concluding she herself would need to make only the Hollandaise sauce, and could leave the dinner to Marta, a hack drove up to the door, and Molly saw Harry’s mother and father in it.
To say she did not tremble would not be correct; for an instant her heart sank; if she had only known they were coming! She wondered if everything was as nice as she would wish it in the little sitting-room. She generally had it, not trim, or oppressively tidy, but with only the pleasant disorder of a room that is lived in; but Marta had a way sometimes of leaving her brush or dustpan—sometimes a kitchen cloth—where it ought not to be. Molly looked at herself, but she was neat, and no one had a right to expect a housewife at eleven in the morning to be ready for company. While Marta went to the door she removed her apron and washed her hands, and when she reëntered the kitchen just waited to say:—
“Marta, make some of your nice noodles at once; leave your up-stairs sweeping till later, and I’ll let you know what to get for lunch.” She passed into the parlor, having in the short interval recovered her composure, and welcomed her unexpected visitors as if their coming were a pleasant surprise, and not an embarrassment.
“Will you come up-stairs and take off your things?” asked Molly, thankful that in consequence of her wanting to show Marta how to make custard and use French icing, the sweeping was not begun and the whole place topsy-turvy and draped in sweeping-sheets.
“Well, I don’t know about staying; we just thought we would run out and see what sort of a place you had here, and take the next train back.”
“Oh, you would not do that?” cried Molly, all her hospitable instincts revolting. “What would Harry say? You must stay till he comes home, and he can perhaps induce you to stay all night.”
“Oh dear, no—no, thank you; Mr. Bishop rarely stays anywhere from home at night.”
“No, no, my dear,” echoed her father-in-law, “I am as old-fogyish as a bachelor, and I like to be at home.”
“Well, at least you must stay the day.”