Presently they went out to the table, and Zee carefully carried the platter of cakes to the table, and later took it back to the kitchen for refilling. And Rosalie chattered, and smiled into the bishop's eyes—for practise, she said afterward, not because she really hoped to dazzle a bishop, and the breakfast went smoothly on.
Doris, in the kitchen, flapped the cakes over, and pulled the griddles back and forth with a fury none the less real because it perforce was silent, for in spite of her resentment not one sound would she permit to reach the ears of the bishop in her dining-room. And the heat of the stove made her cheeks crimson, and her bad disposition made her eyes like bright sweet stars.
When breakfast was over the bishop seated himself comfortably with a paper in a far corner of the living-room where he was out of the way, and Rosalie ran off to college. After doing up the dishes, the younger girls also hurried to school, and Mr. Artman went out to the garage to look over the motor—not that he knew anything about motors, but because all conscientious owners of autos do it.
Doris was very much ashamed of her childish temper by this time, but after so long an absence she had not the heart to appear properly and humbly before the bishop to welcome him to the manse, and she stuck resolutely to the kitchen getting things ready for dinner. Still the bishop rocked comfortably in the living-room, the door open between him and the dining-room through which Doris must pass to reach the other part of the house. And there was so much to be done up-stairs—maybe she could slip out to the barn and make father take the odious bishop for a ride.
Well, did you ever! There came a sudden light knock on the kitchen door, and before Doris had time to slip off the table where she had been swinging her heels in perplexity it opened, and the bishop's friendly face appeared.
"Good morning. May I come in? How busy you are to-day. I am afraid I have caused you extra work. You are Miss Doris, aren't you? I shall never forget the hand that is responsible for those delicious pancakes."
"Can you ever forget the hand that jerked you out of dreamland in the middle of the night?" she asked, laughing, the last trace of her anger vanishing forever.
Then they were friends, and since any one could see plainly there was nothing in the house that needed her particular attention, she took the bishop into the yard and they walked under the bare branches of the maples, dragging their feet through the crinkly fallen leaves, and then they visited father in the garage, teasing him for his motor madness. And it was lunch time before one could realize that breakfast was entirely a thing of the past.
Doris could have apologized for her rudeness very easily, for the bishop had a way of helping one to speak. But she knew it was not necessary, for the bishop also had a way of understanding even when words were left unsaid. And Doris wondered how he ever came to be a Methodist!
As Rosalie said afterward, "You ought to know better than to feed a man such pancakes if you want to be enemies with him."