Her laugh rang out so infectiously that her mother, hearing it up-stairs, smiled in sympathy.
"Isn't that appropriate?" said Lydia, standing rigid in displeasure.
"We couldn't have anything better," cried Wythie emphatically. "That wasn't what I laughed at, Lyddie. And you make it so well that we are proud of your skill, aren't we?"
"That's what made me mention it," said Lydia innocently. And Wythie just succeeded in checking a second laugh.
But Lydia would never have guessed that Wythie laughed because the solemn girl beside her had lost sight of her principles and the wine in the lobster à la Newburg at one and the same moment, oblivious to all but her newly acquired skill in making the delectable dish. Lydia had long ago abandoned all hope of understanding at what Wythie and Rob Grey laughed so often. She had decided that it was usually mere light-mindedness.
[CHAPTER TWO]
ITS GUESTS
Rob walked up and down the platform of Fayre's small station waiting the train which was to bring her guests from New York to spend the day. It was a day that it seemed a pity to spend; it should have been laid by for the winter need of such weather, much as one would lay by a golden guinea against a dark day. And no guinea could have been more golden than this October day. The sunshine seemed to be filtered through its atmosphere till the very air was golden, and the trees sent their showers of yellow leaves down the shafts of sunshine in the brisk breeze, retaining more than they gave of their cloth-of-gold garments to brighten the quiet streets and illumine the hillsides.