“Yes; I am well, by the grace of God and my own good sense,” returned her hostess in her brisk, almost hard tones. “You are prompt to the hour, child. I like that. I hate to be kept waiting. I have my tea at precisely five o’clock. It is years since I had a guest to tea. Sit down there.” She indicated a straight chair with an ornamental leather back and seat. “Jonas will bring the tea table in directly, and serve the tea. Take off your hat and lay it on the library table. I wish to see you without it.”
She had not more than finished speaking, when the snowy-haired servitor wheeled in a good-sized rosewood tea-table. He drew it up to where Marjorie sat, and brought another chair for the mistress of Hamilton Arms similar to the one on which the guest was sitting. Withdrawing from the room, he left youth and age to take tea together.
“Who would have thought that I should ever pour tea for one of my particular aversions,” Miss Susanna commented with grim humor. “Do you take sugar and cream, child?”
“Two lumps of sugar and no cream.” Marjorie held out her hand for the delicate Sevres cup.
“Help yourself to the muffins and jam. It is red raspberry. I put it up myself. Now eat as though you were hungry. I am always ravenous for my tea. I do not have dinner until eight and I am outdoors so much I grow very hungry as five o’clock approaches.”
“I am awfully hungry,” Marjorie confessed. “I love five o’clock tea. We have it at home in summer but not in winter. We girls at Hamilton hardly ever have it, because we have dinner shortly after six.”
“At what campus house are you?” was the abrupt question.
“Wayland Hall. I like it best of all, though Silverton Hall is a fine house.”
“Wayland Hall,” the old lady repeated. “It was his favorite house.”
“You are speaking of Mr. Brooke Hamilton?” Marjorie inquired with breathless interest. “Miss Remson said it was his favorite house. He was so wonderful. ‘We shall ne’er see his like again,’” she quoted, her brown eyes eloquent.