Catherine pulled her to her feet with a hand abrupt, almost harsh. The throbbing behind her temples which had begun the day before, in the steady drive of closing the house and getting off, had increased to a heavy drum. "Pick them up," she said. "Don't stand there like a ninny!"
Spencer's grin faded at the tone of her voice, and her flare of weary temper subsided as she watched them scurry after the fruit. They stowed the oranges into pockets, and corners of the basket.
Finally they were home again. Flora's loud "Glory, glory, halleleuia," swept down the hall as they opened the door, and Letty's accompaniment.
"She's found my drum!" Spencer fled to the kitchen, and a wail followed as Letty was reft of her instrument.
Catherine pressed her lips firmly together as she hung her dripping coat on the rack. "Steady," she said. "They are as tired as I am." Then she thought: that's the great trouble with being a mother. You never get away for a chance to sulk and indulge your bad temper.
Charles came in, with his blandest air of preoccupation. Flora had prepared the dinner, and then gone home when her gentleman friend called for her, to cook her own evening meal, leaving Catherine to broil the steak and set things on the table. Since Letty had slept so long, she was permitted to sit in her high-chair during dinner, where she conducted an insuppressible and very little intelligible conversation.
"She certainly needs training," declared Charles.
"She isn't often on hand for dinner," said Catherine, wearily.
Spencer and Marian cleared away the table, while Catherine bathed Letty, deafening herself to the crash which came from the kitchen. What had Marian dropped this time?