dozen oranges in the pantry that I had not ordered. For five years there hadn't been a servant engaged by any one but me. Now, suddenly, all such an arrangement was to be at an end. Ruth was delighted; Alec was supremely happy; the twins, who worship anything that means more cash, would be transported with joy. Everybody, in fact, would delight in a change in administration—everybody but the poor old dethroned ruler, who was locked in her desolate room trying to find consolation in vigorously making her bed.
When Alec came home at noon I saw him scanning my impassive face, for I had not been crying since the night before, and the trace of tears was gone. After our regular Saturday boiled dinner he asked me to come into the sitting-room. He closed the doors carefully and sat down beside me on the couch. I wished he wouldn't take my hand for it was chapped and red, and of course he had held hers, for which he had bought the beautiful ring in the little blue velvet box, and hers would be soft and white. I drew mine away. Alec talked to me gently and told me about the arrangements. I heard him say with a dull shock, that they would be married in the early fall. I remember wondering how they had decided such details in the course of ten days. I soon discovered that they had managed to go over the whole ground. There seemed to be no question undecided, no points untouched. Ruth, he said, would start in at boarding-school in the fall; the twins of course would continue at college and their vacations would, as usual, be spent at home. He repeated what I already very well knew that after the twins graduated they would probably go out West and start into one of Tom's lumber camps.
