up the minute I get out of the office.
Leave the heavy things for me to do. And don't try to house-clean the
whole flat just because of Mrs. Dorothy Chase. She isn't worth it."

He was as good as his word. Five o'clock in the afternoon saw him at home
again, helping Sally in every way he could think of. Bob was good help,
and she had seldom needed him more than to-day. She went about with
flushed cheeks, moving languidly, yet keeping steadily at work with the
determination of the young hostess who sees nothing else to do.

She had spent the afternoon in the kitchen; she spent the evening in all
those little final tasks which seem so small and yet in the aggregate do
weigh heavily, upon the eve of entertaining.

Work at the bank kept Max until he had barely time to go to the station
for his guests. Alec, coming home to dinner, and finding himself put off
with what he hungrily characterized as a mere "bite," on account of the
necessities of the occasion, went off again somewhere, declaring that he
did not see the occasion for starving the family just on account of
entertaining two already overfed visitors. Uncle Timothy, as was to be
expected, as soon as he heard of the emergency, joined Bob in coming to
Sally's aid, and at half past seven in the evening might have been
discovered by the curious, sitting in the small kitchen, a blue-checked
apron tied about his neck, busily polishing silver.

"It seemed to me pretty bright before, Sally," was his only comment as he
worked. "But I suppose no man could really comprehend the difference
between the degree of brightness suitable for one's family and that
demanded by company."

"If you had seen Dorothy Chase's wedding silver--" responded Sally, and
stopped there, as if words could no further go.

"Yes, yes, I suppose so." Uncle Timothy was rubbing away at a set of thin
old teaspoons which had belonged to Sally's grandmother. "Still, my dear,
it seems as if things taste better out of these old spoons than out of
those handsome new ones the boys gave you Christmas."

"Oh, I love the old things." Sally held a china sugar bowl with a gold
band round it up to the light as she wiped it. She had taken all the best
old china out of its hiding place under the couch, and was giving it a
hot-water bath, drying each article herself, not daring to trust the
frail pieces to Bob's hands. "But Dorothy hates old stuff, and wants
everything modern."

"I remember," said Uncle Timothy, mil