As the family gathered together at breakfast the next morning, she took special pains to shake hands with Bob, and give him a smile. He was surprised and pleased, for he had vaguely connected this visitor with his own misdeed.
"They haven't told her, after all," he thought, and a faint spark of gratitude arose in his heart. "And she ain't one of the long-faced kind, either," he said to himself, as he glanced at her cheerful face.
There was a good deal of bustle after breakfast about getting the children off to school. One fretted about her luncheon; another at being directed to wear overshoes because he had a cold.
"Mamma," said the eldest daughter, "I'm going to have some girls to lunch next Saturday. And I don't want any of you in the room, either."
At this exhibition Mrs. Thayer blushed. She found it not so pleasant to have the children betray themselves to Mrs. Grey present, who was quite another person to Mrs. Grey absent.
Two or three little altercations arose, meantime, between the children.
"I don't see why you should have lunch all to yourself," said Julia, a girl of ten.
"Well, it's enough that I see it," retorted Esther.
"Mamma won't let you, I know; will you, mamma?"
"I've got to have an excuse for tardiness," said Esther, turning to her mother.