"I really don't know. Given it to friends of hers perhaps."
"Oh, Mother, she wouldn't!"
"Well, we'll see." Mrs. Salisbury dropped the subject, and brought her mind back with a visible effort to the morning's work.
Immediately after lunch she interrogated Justine. The girl was drying glasses, each one emerging like a bubble of hot and shining crystal from her checked glass towel.
"Justine," began the mistress, "have we been getting our groceries from Lewis & Sons lately?"
Justine placidly referred to an account book which she took from a drawer under the pantry shelves.
"Our last order was August eleventh," she announced.
Something in her unembarrassed serenity annoyed Mrs. Salisbury.
"May I ask why?" she suggested sharply.
"Well, they are a long way from here," Justine said, after a second's thought, "and they are very expensive grocers, Mrs. Salisbury. Of course, what they have is of the best, but they cater to the very richest families, you know—firms like Lewis & Sons aren't very much interested in the orders they receive from—well, from upper middle-class homes, people of moderate means. They handle hotels and the summer colony at Burning Woods."