The genial tobacco seemed to have quieted his nerves, and
even opened his heart. Grateful for this, Ann resolved that his pipe
should never lack tobacco while she could work.
But now the cares of dinner absorbed her. The meat and vegetables were
prepared, the pudding made, and the long table spread, though she had
to borrow every table in the house, and every dish to have enough to go
around.
At three o'clock when the guests came in, it was really a very pleasant
sight. The bright warm fire, the long table, covered with a
substantial, and, to them, a luxurious meal, all smoking hot. John, in
his neatly brushed suit, in an armchair at the foot of the table, Ann
in a bustle of hurry and welcome, and a plate and a seat for every one.
How the half-starved creatures enjoyed it; how the children stuffed and
the parents looked on with a happiness that was very near to tears; how
old John actually smiled and urged them to send back their plates again
and again, and how Ann, the washerwoman, was the life and soul of it
all, I can't half tell.
After dinner, when the poor women lodgers insisted on clearing up, and
the poor men sat down by the fire to smoke, for old John actually
passed around his beloved tobacco, Ann quietly slipped out for a few
minutes, took four large bundles from a closet under the stairs, and
disappeared upstairs.
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