CHAPTER XXI
THE CORNER HOUSE THANKSGIVING
It was truly a Thanksgiving feast at the old Corner House that day, and it was enjoyed to the full by all. Nor was there a table in all Milton around which sat a more apparently incongruous company.
At first glance one might have thought that the Corner House girls had put forth a special effort to gather together a really fantastical company to celebrate the holiday. Uncle Rufus, at least, had never served quite so odd an assortment of guests during all the years he had been in Mr. Peter Stower's employ.
At one end of the table the old Scotch housekeeper presided, in a fresh cap and apron. Her hard, rosy face looked as though it had received an extra polishing with the huck towel on the kitchen roller.
At the far end of the long board, covered with the best old damask the house afforded, and laid with the heavy, sterling plate that Unc' Rufus tended so lovingly, and the cut glass of old-fashioned pattern, was silver-haired Mr. Howbridge. He was a man very precise in his dress, given to the niceties of the toilet in every particular. He wore rimless glasses perched on his aristocratic beak of a nose, a well cared-for mustache much darker than his hair, and had very piercing eyes.
On his right was prim Aunt Sarah—Aunt Sarah, who never seemed to belong to the family, who lived so self-centered an existence, but who was sure to have her meddling finger in everything that went on in the old Corner House, especially if it was desired that she should not.
Aunt Sarah glared across the table at a tall, lean, ascetic-looking man in a rusty, old-fashioned, black, tail coat that was a world too wide for him across the shoulders, and with his sleek, long hair parted very carefully in the middle, and falling below the high collar of the coat.
Those who had never seen Seneca Sprague save in his flapping duster and straw hat, would scarcely have recognized him now.
Ruth, after the fire, when the prophet had been made to understand that all his possessions for which he really cared were saved, had induced him to come home with them to eat the Thanksgiving feast.