Tom and Sarah were the last of the family to arrive. Sarah had declined Mary's invitation to midday dinner, because she had made her Christmas puddings on the fourteenth of December ever since she was old enough to hold a wooden spoon, and nothing short of a sale or a stack fire would induce her to postpone the ceremony.
Their host and hostess stood in the porch to receive them, and Sarah alighted stiffly, passing a large white handkerchief across her lips before she came forward and kissed her brother.
"Well, John," she remarked, "I suppose I am to offer you my congratulations." To Mary she extended a more formal hand. "Well, Mary, I see you have a houseful. Has Uncle Dickie come?"
"Yes. We made him come last night so as not to be too tired for to-day. You're cold. Come in and take your things off."
"Thank you, I will. It was a very cold drive." Sarah sounded aggrieved, as though Mary were responsible for the weather.
They went upstairs. Mary's room always annoyed Sarah. The queer books, the vase of chrysanthemums, the fire in the grate, all looked as though they were trying to make it a little better than anyone else's.
"I can't think what you want a fire for at your time of life, Mary. What with coal strikes and everything and firing such a price."
"Oh, well"—Mary slid to her knees on the hearth-rug and knelt there fingering the poker—"I thought you would probably be rather cold after a long drive, and you know what the drawing-room fire is when the men get round it, backs to the mantelpiece, heels on the fender, and sixteen stones of John or Toby between us poor women and any ghost of heat. We have to do something."
The poker slipped from her fingers and fell clattering into the grate. Sarah did not know that when she was not present Mary rarely fidgeted. She thought to herself, "I don't know how John stands it. She's never still for a minute, and just think of a woman married ten years sitting about on the floor like that!"
The youthful ease of Mary's movements flaunted Sarah's sixty-three years in her face.