en, in agony, "After your going and getting them here, I
haven't a thing ready for them but lettuce sandwiches and fresh
doughnuts."

"Never mind. I'll make them take those. Say, what kind of tea have we
got now?"

"Oh, dear! we haven't got a thing left but just--well, it's just tea,
mixed."

He galloped back into the tea-room, frightened lest the royal patrons
leave before they were served. On the way he resolved to lie--not as the
pinching tradesman lies, smugly and unconsciously, but desperately, to
save Mother.

"We have orange pekoe and oolong," he gasped.

"Then you might give us some orange pekoe and--oh, two chicken
sandwiches."

"Gee! I'm awfully sorry, ma'am, but we're just out of chicken
sandwiches. If we'd only known _you_ were coming-- But we have some very
nice fresh lettuce sandwiches, and I do wish you would try some of our
doughnuts. They're fresh-made, just this minute."

He clasped his hands, pressed them till the fingers of one gouged the
back of the other. Father was not a Uriah Heep. At Pilkings & Son's he
had often "talked back" to some of his best customers. But now he would
gladly have licked Mrs. Vance Carter's spatted shoes.

"No--oh, bring us some lettuce sandwiches and some orange pekoe. I don't
think we care for any doughnuts," said Mrs. Carter, impatiently.

Father bolted again, and whispered to Mother, who stood where he had
left her, "Lettuce sandwiches and tea, and for Heaven's sake make the
tea taste as much like orange pekoe as you can."

The Applebys had no delicately adjusted rule about the thickness of
bread in sandwiches. Sometimes Mother was moved to make them very
dainty, very thin and trim. But now, because he was in such a fever to
please the Carters, Father fairly slashed their last loaf of bread, and
slapped in the lettuce, while Mother was drawing tea. In two minutes he
was proudly entering with the service-tray. He set it down before the
Carters; he fussed with a crumb on the table-cloth, with the rather
faded crimson rambler in the ornate pressed-glass vase. Mrs. Carter
glanced at him impatiently. He realized that he was being officious, and
rushed away.

Mother was sitting by the wide kitchen table, which was scarred with
generations of use of cleaver and bread-knife and steak-pounder. The
kitchen door was open to the broad land, which flowed up to the sill in
a pleasant sea of waving grass. But she was turned from it, staring
apprehensively toward the tea