Everybody sat down comfortably in the dining-room, while Frances and Mildred took hold and helped Amy and Laura finish the closet. Everybody meant mamma, Mildred, Frances, Elbert, Lawrence, Sammy, and Jessie. Somehow a downright rainy day in autumn, with a bit of a blaze on the hearth, makes you feel like dropping into talk and staying in one place, and discussing eventful things, such as Grace Wainwright's return, and what her effect would be on her family, and what effect they would have on her.
"I really do not think Grace is in the very least bit prepared for the life she is coming to," said Frances.
"No," said mamma, "I fear not. But she is coming to her duty, and one can always do that."
"For my part," said Elbert, "I see nothing so much amiss at the Wainwrights'. They're a jolly set, and go when you will, you find them having good times. Of course they are in straitened circumstances."
"And Grace has been accustomed to lavish expenditure," said Mildred.
"If she had remained in Paris with her Uncle Ralph and Aunt Gertrude she would have escaped a good deal of hardship," said Lawrence.
"Oh," mamma broke in, impatiently, "how short-sighted you young people are! You look at everything from your own point of view. It is not of Grace I am thinking so much. I am considering her mother and the girls and her poor worn-out father. I couldn't sleep last night, thinking of the Wainwrights. Mildred, you might send over a nut-cake and some soft custard and a glass of jelly, when it stops raining, and the last number of Harper's Magazine might be slipped into the basket too—that is, if you have all done with it. Papa and I have finished reading the serial, and we will not want it again. There's so much to read in this house."
"I'll attend to it, mamma," said Mildred. "Now what can I do to help you before I go to my French lesson?"
"Nothing, you sweetest of dears," said mother, tenderly. Mildred was her great favorite, and nobody was jealous, for we all adored our tall, fair sister.
So we scattered to our different occupations, and did not meet again till luncheon was announced.