"For mercy's sake, Doctor!" cried Cynthia, and hurried across the neat and pleasant kitchen to meet them. "I wasn't expecting you yet for an hour. Mrs. Macauley and Mrs. Chester wasn't either. They was over here ten minutes ago, planning how to get rid o' the folks in there that's insisting on setting and waiting for you to come."
"Never mind them, Cynthia," said her new mistress, shaking hands. "The Doctor will see them and I will stay with you. I've so much to plan with you. What a pleasant kitchen! And how delicious something smells! Cynthia, I believe I'm hungry!"
"Well, now, you just come and set right down in the dining-room and I'll give you something," cried the housekeeper, delighted.
"That's right, Cynthia," approved Burns, much relieved. "Look after her till I'm free." And he vanished.
"I reckon that'll be a pretty steady job," Cynthia declared, "if I'm to do it 'till he's free.' He won't be free, Mrs.—Burns, till the next time you get him out of town."
She led the way into the dining-room.
"Mrs. Macauley wanted to have you come to dinner there, to-night, and Mrs. Chester wanted you, too. But Mr. Macauley said this was the place for you to have your first dinner in—your own home, and he made the women folks give in. So the table's all set, and I can hurry up dinner so's to have it as soon as the Doctor gets those folks fixed up—if there ain't a lot more by that time. Since Miss Mathewson went I've been answering the telephone, and it seems 'sif the town wouldn't let him have his honeymoon out, they're so crazy to get him back. Now—will you set down and let me give you a bit o' lunch? It's only five o'clock, and I've planned dinner for half-past six."
"It would be a pity to spoil this glorious appetite, Cynthia, though I'm sorely tempted. I think I'll use the time getting freshened up from my long drive—we've come a hundred and sixty miles to-day, through the mud. Then I'll find Bob and be ready to have dinner with the Doctor."
"I'll have to take you round by the porch to get to the Doctor's room—you wouldn't want to go through the office, with such a raft of folks."
Ellen's bag in hand, Cynthia led the way. In at the long window she hurried her, out of the rain which was dashing against it.