Or--don't you think just a big china bowl full of sweet peas
would be prettier? The sand might show and, and--the epergne is rather
stiff."
But Miss Roberta looked aggrieved. The epergne with its gold and silver
fern leaves climbing up a thin stalk of glass to its top dish for fruit
had always come out for dinner parties and she liked not innovations. It
was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the
same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with care to be smuggled
away, leaving the sweet peas sole occupants of the sand. But the effect
was very festive and the two carried their work into the dining-room
well pleased.
The best Sevres dinner-set was had out, which that traveler Timothy had
brought from Paris among other things, and the best cut glass and
rat-tailed silver. Old William, assisted by Hester and Priscilla, had
been busy polishing most of the day--while the cook and the "young
person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen.
And punctually at seven in broad daylight, the three Misses La Sarthe,
the two elder in their finest mauve silk evening dresses, awaited their
guests in the Italian parlor.
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