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, mildly.  “I was always too antique for her to notice.  I sha’n’t be surprised if she stumbles over me to-night, not noticing that I’m here.”

“If she does,” called Bob, from the depths of a closet which he was sweeping out under Sally’s direction, “she’ll settle with me!  She’ll find I’ve grown a few inches since she used to call me Sally’s ’everlasting little brother.’”

It was all done at last.  Sally went to dress, wearily exhorting herself to remember that her room was not her room to-night, and that she must not forget and leave so much as a stray hair-pin on the freshly washed and ironed linen of the little toilet-table.

She stowed away, under the couch on which she was to sleep, the clean cambric house-dress she meant to put on the next morning, feeling that it would not be at all surprising if she were unable to rise from that couch to get breakfast, and wondering what Dorothy Chase could do about breakfast if thrown upon her own resources.  It was so unusual for Sally’s vigorous young frame to experience such exhaustion after even more severe effort than that of the past day that she could only wonder what it meant, and finally decided, after some speculation, that it was the effect of these first warm days of spring, combined with the stress of entertaining under difficulties.