“I don’t wonder you’re proud, Belle! Every dish of which we shall partake has been prepared by your own fingers, as well as almost all the lovely things in this room, except, of course, my masterpiece of honey. The Bees, the Lieutenant, and your Humble Servant claim credit for that golden pyramid! Ah, yes, and the Eggs, and the Chickens, and the Boned Turkey,—these are the Motherkin’s! But all the rest— They’re at the door, dear! Come and receive them.”
Arm in arm the sisters passed to the wide porch, and stood there smiling welcome upon the three aged figures which came slowly up the driveway.
“Ah, ha, my dears! That’s what I like! A welcome at the open door! That’s hearty and old-fashioned, and as it should be. Between friends, my dears, between friends. Of course, in a stately assemblage one must do as custom dictates. And may I be allowed to pay you both a bit of a compliment on this happy occasion!”
“Allowed or not, brother Chidly, you are certain to pay it; but they’ll bear it. They’ll bear it without spoiling by it,” said Miss Joanna, gayly. “Once in a way it does no harm to tell a girl she’s pretty, when the beauty is offset, as in our dear ones here, by such good common-sense. Three years, is it? Three days it almost seems to me! Time goes so fast when one is old; though I’m not really old yet, am I? Nor Chidly here, nor Dolloway, who consented, at last, to sit down to our feast with us. Ah! here’s the Mother!”
At this moment Mrs. Beckwith—one had to look twice to be sure that this round, plump matron was really the once fragile Mrs. Beckwith—appeared to add her welcome to her daughters’. She leaned proudly, as any mother might, upon the arm of a tall, broad-shouldered youth of twenty, whose upper lip had just become interesting to himself and an unfailing source of amusement to Mistress Beatrice! But the air of real manliness, the honest courage and determination of the bright eyes under the heavy brows, told of a character strong enough to afford an occasional weakness, even to suspecting a mustache where mustache there was none.
On the mother’s other side walked Robert, for once separated from the rifle which had been his latest gift from the adoring Mr. Dolloway, who declared again and again—and nobody had the heart to contradict him—that if it had not been for that now historic “spanking,” administered upon the occasion of his first meeting with “Humpty-Dumpty,” a valuable citizen would have been lost to the world.
Did “Bob” resent this? Not a bit. He had long since learned to look upon his old comrade as the most delightful, generous, indulgent person in existence; and he now forsook his mother to clap Mr. Dolloway upon the shoulder, exclaiming: “Say, Partner! Why didn’t you take that honey out of that hive last night? If we’re going to let you share in the business, you mustn’t expect to shirk, you know.”
“Robert! that is impertinent.”
“Well, I don’t mean it that way. Partner knows. But he told me to go off and practise shooting at that sardine box on the lane gate-post and he’d tend to the honey things for Bon. But he didn’t, and I got the lecture ’stead of him.”
“Well,” retorts “the partner,” “I had to watch the way you scored, didn’t I? If I hadn’t you’d ’a’ claimed more’n I had myself! I wasn’t going to allow that, you may believe!”