"Phyllis, listen to this," and Sarah unfolded the General's telegram from Hazelnook, and read:
"Expect the family and two more by 11.30 train to-morrow morning. Prepare as for garden party.
"Harold S. Haines."
"That's a definite telegram!" Sarah said, indignantly. "'Expect the family!' What family? How do I know how many there are in a family I don't know anything about? The 'two more' are of no consequence, but there may be three, two, ten, six or one in that 'family.' The General certainly needs a keeper if any man ever did."
"He knows you are equal to entertaining fifty at a few hours' notice, Miss Sarah," Phyllis said, soothingly.
"I don't know about that!" Sarah replied, somewhat mollified by Phyllis' appreciative remark. "But if nobody-knows-how-many-and-two-more are to be dropped down upon me at a moment's notice, I certainly do not intend to disgrace myself. Phyllis, we shall have to work!"
"Yes'm," said Phyllis, dropping easily into the old monosyllable.
As may be imagined, the old mansion was in perfect order the next morning. Flowers were everywhere, and the August sunshine flooded the stately rooms, for every blind and shutter was wide open. In the great oak dining-room the table was already spread with crystal and silver and china and damask, the united rich possessions of many generations of Haines' housemothers. Fruit and flowers were not lacking, and these had been arranged by Phyllis' deft and willing fingers. In the kitchen the banquet—a bountiful one, you may be sure, for who could say how many hungry mouths that mysterious "family" might contain?—was well under way. And Sarah—oh, Sarah was everywhere!—planning, ordering, executing, and, of course, scolding in her whimsical way, but in splendid humor, withal, for she gloried in an occasion where there was encouragement to put forth her best abilities.
Sarah was on the porch when the guests came, a line of maids, with Phyllis at their head, behind her, and her face was a study when she saw one carriage after another drive up, and a stream of people pour out as water flows from an inverted pitcher. All the General's carriages, and a roomy buckboard, containing as many boys and girls as could crowd in, made an impressive show. There were Mr. and Mrs. Walcott, Miss Celia and the minister, the General and May, Miss Maud Berkeley and Uncle George, nurse and baby, Ned and Jane, and Gay, Ethel, Julia, Ned Payne, Lyman, Robert, Will, Fred, Herb, and even Philip and Rob Lawrence, who had been picked up in the village at May's request.
"Mercy me!" thought Sarah. "If all but 'two' belong in her family no wonder Mrs. Walcott has nervous prostration! 'She,'" with a glance at Miss Celia, "is one of the 'two.' She is prettier than her picture and the image of his mother. Those two young people are lovers. How alike those twins are! No wonder they fooled everybody. Our child is a little sweeter than the boy. Who under the sun is that lank man with her? Another admirer, I should say. Well, such a figure as that can have no show beside the General, who is a fine-looking man, barring his outlandish clothes. Not much, Mr. Long-Legs! I'm glad I had that second lot of ice-cream made, with all those children there won't be a bit too much!"