It was an interesting scene. The flames of the enormous fire brightly illumined the faces and figures of Stargarde, Vivienne, Judy, granny, and the children, who were in the foreground, and the groups at the various tables in the middle of the room. The retiring few who had withdrawn to the window seats and corner benches were not so plainly to be observed.
All were on an equality. There was no sharp drawing of class lines possible in Stargarde’s vicinity, and every face in the room was for the time a contented face.
Armour and Camperdown sat down near Stargarde and looked about them while listening to the overpowering strains of a melancholy swan song that came sobbing and crying from the fiddle of a blind man who sat in a corner of the room.
A club-footed boy, hitching himself over the shining floor, occasionally stirred the molasses in the pot on the stove, and after a time, to the great delight of the children, poured it out in a number of shallow buttered plates and took it out to the veranda to cool.
Shortly after the exit of the taffy plates, the doorkeeper, who was a lad not deficient in a sense of humor, caught sight of a new guest, and with an exaggerated flourish announced in his shrillest tones, “Lord Skitanglebags!”
MacDaly stepped gallantly forward, smirking and bowing to the assembled company and taking in good part their subdued laughter and humorous salutations.
He had arrayed himself in white stockings and tan shoes, a faded red military jacket, a parti-colored sash and a pair of shiny black trousers. In one hand he carried a sword, and in the other a black silk hat. This hat he adroitly turned upside down, thereby allowing to fall upon the floor in front of Stargarde a small roll of manuscript.
“MacDaly,” she exclaimed, surveying in amusement his beaming face and the gray locks brushed smoothly upon each side of his gleaming bald pate, “You don’t mean to say that you wish to give us another lecture?”
“A topical lecture, lady,” meekly.
“It is better to be frank, isn’t it?” she continued.