her enthusiastic eagerness that the new domestic
experiment should prove a success.

But for a morning or two before this particular dinner she had shirked
her work. Perhaps the novelty of it was wearing off a little. There was
a tennis tournament in progress at the Burning Woods Country Club, two
miles away from River Falls, and Sandy, who was rather proud of her
membership in this very smart organization, did not want to miss a
moment of it. Breakfast was barely over before somebody's car was at
the door to pick up Miss Salisbury, who departed in a whirl of laughter
and a flutter of bright veils, to be gone, sometimes, for the entire
day.

She had gone in just this way on the morning of the dinner, and her
mother, who had quite a full program of her own for the morning, had
had breakfast in bed. Mrs. Salisbury came downstairs at about ten
o'clock to find the dining-room airing after a sweeping; curtains
pinned back, small articles covered with a dust cloth, chairs at all
angles. She went on to the kitchen, where Justine was beating
mayonnaise.

"Don't forget chopped ice for the shaker, the last thing," Mrs.
Salisbury said, adding, with a little self-conscious rush, "And, oh, by
the way, Justine, I see that Miss Alexandra has gone off again, without
touching the living room. Yesterday I straightened it a little bit, but
I have two club meetings this morning, and I'm afraid I must fly.
If--if she comes in for lunch, will you remind her of it?"

"Will she be back for lunch? I thought she said she would not," Justine
said, in honest surprise.

"No; come to think of it, she won't," her mother admitted, a little
flatly. "She put her room and her brothers' room in order," she added
inconsequently.

Justine did not answer, and Mrs. Salisbury went slowly out of the
kitchen, annoyance rising in her heart. It was all very well for Sandy
to help out about the house, but this inflexible idea of holding her to
it was nonsense!

Ruffled, she went up to her room. Justine had carried away the
breakfast tray, but there were towels and bath slippers lying about, a
litter of mail on the bed, and Mr. Salisbury's discarded linen strewn
here and there. The dressers were in disorder, window curtains were
pinned back for more air, and the coverings of the twin beds thrown
back and trailing on the floor. Fifteen minutes' brisk work would have
straightened the whole, but Mrs. Salisbury could not spare the time
just then. The morning w