Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.

“We’ll wait five minutes for her,” thought Mrs. Lambert.  “If there hasn’t been an accident to detain her, she’s very rude, and certainly not fit to be a teacher of manners, and I don’t wonder she’s unpopular with the girls.”

The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did not appear.  To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs. Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served.  It was seemingly a very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger’s feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day.  Mrs. Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other relations.  But she must not dwell on these memories with all these guests to serve.  She must put her own needs aside to see that little Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.

It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was laughing a little at Joe’s clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one guest was missing,—­while she was doing this, there came a great crunch of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell, and, “There she is! there she is!” thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added thought:  “It’s rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage when she is at such a little distance from us,—­rather putting on airs, but—­What are you jumping up for?” she calls out to Elsie, who has suddenly sprung from her seat.  “What are you jumping up for?  Ellen will attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed her wraps.  Sit down, Elsie; don’t be so fidgety.  I will—­” But the dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,—­