“It’s the Hendersons; they’ve come for me!” cried Lucy, looking from Mrs. Lawton to Brooke anxiously and jumping up in a confusion unusual for this young person, who prided herself upon never being caught off guard. For it suddenly occurred to her that it might be painful for her friends to have their privacy thus invaded by those who were nothing if not gossipingly critical, while at the same time she made a motion as if to put on her outer garments before answering the knock.
Brooke’s face, too, reflected something of her apprehension, but Mrs. Lawton arose quietly, her head unconsciously taking the half backward poise of mingled dignity and courtesy which many women of her world had tried in vain to imitate. Stopping Lucy by a single gesture, she said: “Do not hurry, it is still quite early; surely our friends will be glad to join us, for they have already had a long drive and it has been growing bitterly cold these two hours past. Who did you say made up the party beside Paula and Leonie Henderson?”
“Violet Lang, the Bleecker brothers, and Charlie Ashton,” replied Lucy, sinking meekly back into her chair, holding Pam up before her face as a sort of screen against consequences.
“Brooke, will you please get some fresh tea, bread, and butter, and ask Adam to show the coachman the way to the barn, where he can shelter the horses and warm himself by Larsen’s little wood stove?” Then, as the second battery of knocks began, Mrs. Lawton went swiftly to the door and threw it open, revealing Charlie Ashton, enveloped to the eyes in the most picturesque of furs, beating his hands and stamping his feet with the cold.
At the unexpected sight of the sweet-faced woman at the door, backgrounded by the hospitable firelit interior, Ashton dropped back the hooded arrangement that covered his head, and, holding out both hands, grasped those of Mrs. Lawton with a fervor and expression of face that said twenty times more than the conventional words of greeting that followed.
Would they all come in for a cup of tea? Just wouldn’t they, though! The ladies were growling most dangerously about the wind, their ears, etc., and he’d dig them out of that uncomfortable omnibus sleigh in a jiffy!
When the six had fairly entered and been unwrapped from their furs in the square hall, and the female portion had patted up ragged locks at Great-grandma West’s eagle mirror that faced the old clock, Brooke (aided by Mrs. Peck, who arose at once to the country watchword “company”) had returned with fresh tea and two plates, one of thin bread and butter, the other of wafer-like cheese sandwiches, while the hospitable influence of the teakettle put the visitors quite at their ease. As for the men, they were naturally and frankly delighted at seeing old friends, at the dogs, the genuine simplicity of the house, and with the good things.
True, the colour had rushed to Brooke’s face as Charlie Ashton had greeted her, but no reference was made to the letter sent to his care save a significant pressure of the hand, which somehow gave Brooke comfort and a feeling of championship.
The women talked rather nervously of the gossip of everyday and eyed the surroundings in an uncomfortable, furtive sort of way that, as Lucy wrote Brooke afterward, must have nearly made them cross-eyed. The men roamed about openly after being bidden by their hostess to make themselves at home and go where they pleased, “even into the pantry!” This they presently did. Charlie Ashton, returning with one of Miss Keith’s jars of strawberry jam carried aloft, and holding out the empty sandwich plate, begged for more bread to spread it on.
“Very well,” said Brooke, recovering her old-time gayety, “only you must come to the kitchen and cut it for yourself; my hand is quite tired.”