"He was reading," said the lad; "he had forgotten all about supper, but when I told him who was here he wouldn't come."
"Flattering for us," said Miss Gastonguay, with such appreciative irony that the children, thinking a joke was intended, laughed uproariously.
Captain White in some anxiety was surveying the table. There were on it sundry stacks of bread and butter, that would fly like chaff before the whirlwind when the boys got at them, a small pyramid of cheese cut in squares, and only part of a plum loaf in wedge-shaped pieces. Miss Gastonguay, as the most honoured guest, had been asked to carve, and sat in composed gravity behind a joint of cold beef that, judging from its appearance, had already figured at the dinner-table. She was also, being unused to planning, carving it in too generous slices.
"Beg pardon, ma'am," he remarked, "but you're not going to make this spin out. This family is larger than usual this evening."
Sensitive, gentle Marion quivered with excitement. She it was who had proposed having the cold meat for supper.
"Cheese is good enough for a relish," Mrs. Negus had said during the progress of a somewhat impassioned interview in the pantry.
"But those people are accustomed to late dinner," Marion had pleaded. "I think we ought to have meat and potato for them."
"Well, you may have the meat," Mrs. Negus had said, "but you can't have the potatoes. If they want dinner at night let them stay at home. I am very glad to see them, but they must accommodate themselves to our ways. Bread and butter and cheese and apple sauce are good enough for anybody."
And now the beef was going to give out and Marion would be covered with confusion, for Aunt Negus would be sure to say, in her good-natured, stubborn way, "You shouldn't have proposed it."
"I have a plan," said Captain White, his downcast face clearing as he watched Miss Gastonguay's knife wandering vainly around the promontories and head-lands of the joint, searching for meat and finding none. "Pass me the plates, children, I'll doctor them."