To-night at dinner every rule of a well-furnished and well-governed household was followed. Hedden and his assistant served. The food was deliciously cooked and the sauce of a good appetite aided all to enjoy the meal.
And the fun and laughter! Mr. Howbridge and Mrs. MacCall enjoyed the jokes and chatter as much as the younger people themselves. Dot’s discovery that this was not at all like the lodge room on Meadow Street delighted everybody.
“If you think that red deer ever held lodge meetings in this house, you are much mistaken, honey,” Agnes told the smallest Corner House girl.
Tom Jonah was allowed to come in and “sit up” at table. The old dog was so well trained that his table manners (and this was Ruth’s declaration) were far superior to those of Sammy Pinkney. But Sammy was on his best behavior this evening. The grandeur of the table service quite overpowered him.
When they all filed back into the hall, which was really the living-room and reception hall combined, Tom Jonah went with them and curled down on a warm spot on the hearth. One of the men staggered in with a great armful of chunks for the evening fire. Hedden found a popper and popcorn. There was a basket of shiny apples, and even a jug of sweet cider appeared, to be set down near the fire to take the chill off it.
“Now, this,” said Mr. Howbridge, sitting in a great chair with his slippered feet outstretched toward the fire, “is what I call country comfort.”
“Whist, man!” exclaimed Mrs. MacCall. “’Tis plain to be seen you ken little about country comforts, or discomforts either. You were born in the city, Mr. Howbridge, and you have lived in the city most of your days. ’Tis little you know what it means to live away from towns and from luxuries.”
“Why,” laughed the lawyer, “I always go away for a vacation in the summer, and I usually choose some rustic neighborhood.”
“Aye. Where they have piped water in the house, and electricity, an’ hair mattresses. Aye. I know your kind of ‘country,’ too, Mr. Howbridge. But when I was a child at home we lived in the real country—only two farms in the vale and the shepherds’ cots. My feyther was a shepherd, you know.”
“You must be some relation of ours, then, Mrs. MacCall,” Luke said, smiling.