"The dear old plates!" Esther picked hers up after she had emptied it and looked lovingly at the blue roses depicted upon it. "And to think last time l ate off one I—"
"Was a little bride with the veil pushed back from your face," the old lady said, "and everyone watching you cut the cake. Only two have broken since—oh yes, Hannah, the girl who came after Emily, chipped off the handle of the sugar-basin and broke a bit out of the slop-bowl."
"Where did Father stand?" Meg asked. She was peopling the room with wedding guests; the ham and the chops, the toast and eggs and dishes of fruit, had turned to a great white towered cake with silver leaves.
"Just up there where Pip is sitting," Mrs. Hassal said, "and he was helping Esther with the cake, because she was cutting it with his sword. Such a hole you made in the table-cloth, Esther, my very best damask one with the convolvulus leaves, but, of course, I've darned it—dear, dear!"
Baby had upset her coffee all over herself and her plate and Bunty, who was next door.
She burst into tears of weariness and nervousness at the new people, and slipped off her chair under the table. Meg picked her up.
"May I put her to bed?" she said; "she is about worn out."
"Me, too," Nellie said, laying down her half-eaten scone and pushing back her chair. "Oh, I am so tired!"
"So'm I." Bunty finished up everything on his plate in choking haste and stood up. "And that horrid coffee's running into my boots."
So just as the sun began to smile and chase away the sky's heavy tears, they all went to bed again to make up for the broken night, and it was: six o'clock and tea-time before any of them opened their eyes again.