"In the mean time, good people," said Frances, appearing in the doorway, "luncheon is served."
We had a pretty new dish—new to us—for luncheon, and as everybody may not know how nice it is, I'll just mention it in passing.
Take large ripe tomatoes, scoop out the pulp and mix it with finely minced canned salmon, adding a tiny pinch of salt. Fill the tomatoes with this mixture, set them in a nest of crisp green lettuce leaves, and pour a mayonnaise into each ruby cup. The dish is extremely dainty and inviting, and tastes as good as it looks. It must be very cold.
"But," Doctor Raeburn said, in reply to a remark of mother's that she was pleased the girls had decided on teaching, it was so womanly and proper an employment for girls of good family, "I must insist that the 'interpretations' be not entirely dropped. I'll introduce you, my dear," he said, "when you give your first recital, and that will make it all right in the eyes of Highland."
"Thank you, Doctor," said Grace. "I would rather have your sanction than anything else in the world, except papa's approval."
"Why don't your King's Daughters give Grace a boom? You are always getting up private theatricals, and this is just the right time."
"Lawrence Raeburn, you are a trump!" said Amy, flying round to her brother and giving him a hug. "We'll propose it at the first meeting of the Ten, and it'll be carried by acclamation."
"Now," said Grace, rising and saying good-afternoon to my mother, with a courtesy to the rest of us, "I'm going straight home to break ground there and prepare my mother for great events."
Walking over the fields in great haste, for when one has news to communicate, one's feet are wings, Grace was arrested by a groan as of somebody in great pain. She looked about cautiously, but it was several minutes before she found, lying under the hedge, a boy with a broken pitcher at his side. He was deadly pale, and great drops of sweat rolled down his face.
"Oh, you poor boy! what is the matter?" she cried, bending over him in great concern.