"I have no business to add one smallest item of anxiety to your list of worries," he admitted. "But it seems so good to me to have somebody care, just now. Fieldsy's a dear soul--I couldn't get on without her, but--Never mind, that's enough of Andrew Churchill for one afternoon. Shall we make a big spurt to the finish? Let's show them what skating is--no little cutting of geometrical spider-webs in a forty-foot square!"
They drew in with swift, graceful strokes, threaded their course through the crowd of skaters, and were soon on their way home. Captain Rayburn and Celia passed them, called back that it was a great day for invalids and children, and reached home just in time for the doctor to carry Celia into the little brick house. Charlotte ran to summon her three brothers, for it was after six o'clock.
Never had an oyster stew such enthusiastic praise. Not an appetite was lacking, not a spoon flagged. Mrs. Fields, moved to lavish hospitality, in which she was upheld by the doctor, produced a chicken pie, which had been originally intended for his dinner alone, and which she had at first designed, when she proposed the oysters, to keep over until the morrow. This was flanked by various dishes, impromptu but delectable, and followed by a round of winter fruit and spongecake--the latter the pride of the housekeeper's heart, and dear to her master from old association.
"If you live like this all the time, Doctor Churchill," said John Lansing Birch, leaning back in his chair at last with the air of a man who asks no more of the gods, "I advise you to keep up a bachelor establishment to the end of your days."
"How would that suit you, Mrs. Fields?" asked the doctor, laughing.
Mrs. Fields, from her place at the end of the table--they had insisted on having her sit down with them--answered deliberately:
"As long as a man's a man I suppose nothing on earth ever will make him feel so satisfied with himself and all creation as being set down in front of a lot of eatables. Now what gives me most peace of mind to-night is knowing that that little Ellen Donohue, asleep on my bed, has got enough new clothes, by this day's work, to make a very good beginning of an outfit."
"Now, how do you old bachelors feel?" cried Celia, amidst laughter, and the party broke up.
At ten o'clock that evening, when Charlotte had seen her sister comfortably in bed--for Celia still needed help in undressing--had tucked in Just and warned Jeff that it was bedtime, the telephone-bell rang.
Lanse and Captain Rayburn sat reading in the living-room, where the telephone stood upon a desk, and Lanse, who was near it, moved lazily to answer it. But before he could lift the receiver to his ear Charlotte had run into the room and was taking it from him, murmuring, "It's for me--I'm sure it is."