Nor am I prepared to say that Sarah, as she quitted her look-out at the high window at the sound of the dinner bell, could have given a more satisfactory reason for her discontent and want of spirits.
CHAPTER II.
Mrs. Hunt's china, like her grammar, was of two sorts. When her duty to "society" or the necessity of circumstances forced her to be hospitable, she "did the thing" well. At a notice of moderate length she could get up a handsome, if not a bountiful, entertainment, to which no man need have been ashamed to seat his friends, and when the occasion warranted the display she grudged not the "other" china, the other silver, nor the other table-linen.
She did, however, set her face, like a broad flint, against the irregularity of inviting chance visitors to partake of the family bread and salt. Intimate as Victoria West was with Lucy, she met only a civil show of regretful acquiescence in her proposal to go home as the dinner hour approached, and Robbie or Richard Hunt was promptly offered to escort her to her abode upon the next block. If she remained to luncheon, as she would do occasionally, Lucy, in her hearing, begged her mother to excuse them from going down, and to send up two cups of tea and a few sandwiches to the sitting-room. This slight repast was served by the butler upon a neat little tray, in a tete-a-tete service—a Christmas gift to Lucy "from her ever-loving Victoria," and sentimentally dedicated to the use of the pair of adopted sisters.
Therefore, Sarah was not surprised to find Victoria gone, despite the storm, when she entered the dining-room. An immense crumb-cloth covered the carpet; a row of shrouded chairs, packed elbow to elbow, stood against the further end of the apartment, and a set of very ordinary ones were around the table. The cloth was of whity-brown material, and the dishes a motley collection of halt and maimed—for all Mrs. Hunt's vigilance could not make servants miraculously careful. There was no propriety, however, according to her system of economy, in condemning a plate or cup as past service because it had come off second best, to the extent of a crack or nick or an amputated handle, in an encounter with some other member of the crockery tribe. "While there is life there is hope," was, in these cases, paraphrased by her to the effect that while a utensil would hold water it was too good to be thrown away.
It was not a sumptuous repast to which Sarah sat down after she had placed Jeannie in her high chair and tied the great gingham bib around her neck. On the contrary, it came near being a scant provision for the healthy appetites of seven people. Before Mr. Hunt, a mild, quiet little man, was a dish of stew, which was, in its peculiar line, a thing—not of beauty, but wonder.
Only a few days since, as I stood near the stall of a poultry vender in market, a lady inquired for chickens.
"Yes, ma'am. Roasting size, ma'am?"