It was, after all, on the first day of Elise's visit that she took that drive with Dixie, for this, I remember now, was the first evening meal that she had had with us. An awful catastrophe took place during the ordeal too. In the first place, having dinner at night added to the strain the family were all under, and it may have been due to the general atmosphere of uneasiness that made Nellie so stupid and careless. I don't know how it happened, but when she was passing the crackers to Elise, during the soup course, her cap got loose somehow and fell cafluke on Elise's bread-and-butter plate. There was an instant of dead quiet, and then Oliver, who just at that moment happened to have his mouth full of soup, exploded like a rubber ball with water in it. He shoved back his chair with a jerk, and coughing and choking into his napkin, got up and left the room. Of course that sent Malcolm off into a regular spasm, and little Ruth began to giggle too. I could feel myself growing as red as a beet, but I didn't laugh. No one laughed outright.
Elise was the first one to break the pause, and this is what she said:
"I've had the loveliest drive this afternoon," and then as no one replied she went on, "Chenery took me around the reservoir. How old are the ruins of that old mill at the upper end?"
Perhaps you think that that was a very graceful way of treating the situation, but I didn't. We were all simply dying to laugh. We couldn't think of old mills with that cap sticking on Elise's butter. However, I heard Father at the other end of the table making some sort of an answer to Elise, and all of us managed to control themselves somehow or other. Nellie, red in the face, carried the bread-and-butter plate away; Oliver sneaked back into his place; and I slowly began to cool off. But of course it spoiled the meal for me.
As soon after the horrible occurrence as possible, I escaped up here to my cupola, and Tom found me here before he went to bed. I knew he must be disappointed at the way I was running things. I hadn't been alone with him before, and when his head pushed up through the trap door and he asked, "You here?" I didn't answer. I was sitting in the pitch dark on the window-seat, but Tom must have seen my shadow for he came up and stood beside me. He remained perfectly silent for a minute then he said, "Aren't there a lot of stars out to-night!"
"Oh, Tom," I burst out, "I'm so sorry! Wasn't it awful? Everything's going all wrong."
He sat down.
"It's all right, Bobbie," he said quietly. "Only I wish Elise might see us as we really are. Then," he added, "you would see Elise as she really is."
Tom didn't ask me how I liked her (he knew better than to do that), and suddenly I felt sorry for my brother. I could have almost cried, not because of the accident at dinner, not because of my failure, but because Elise hadn't made us like her. I did so want Tom's wife to be the same bully sort of person Tom was.