“That is good,” she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice, who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood out boldly on his forehead.  “You’re really not stupid, for a boy; and you have n’t ‘made a mess,’ which is more than I hoped.  Now, please pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don’t stare at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,—­dig out the cork with a hairpin, I ’ve lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the dining-table (oh, it’s so charming to have three!); light the silver candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in style; see if the fire needs coal; and I’ll be ready by that time.”

“I can never remember, but I fly!  Oh, what an excellent slave-driver was spoiled in you!” said Edgar.

The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year.  The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers underneath them.  Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n’t suffer from the brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and its quaint full sleeves.  She had burned two small blisters on her wrist:  they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal wounds.  Her mother murmured ‘Poor darling wrist’ and ’kissed the place to make it well.’  Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on, thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the objectionable Tony.  After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed, Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad; then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner’s.

“Can’t I wash the dishes?” asked Edgar, when the feast was ended.

“They are not going to be washed, at least by us.  This is a great occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the dinner things.”

Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore a festive appearance.  The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a faint second from her cosy place on the sofa.

And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson’s “Milkmaid Song” fit “Nelly Ely,” and she must teach him the pretty words.

      “Across the grass,
      I saw her pass,
  She comes with tripping pace;
      A maid I know,
      And March winds blow
  Her hair across her face. 
      Hey!  Dolly!  Ho!  Dolly! 
      Dolly shall be mine,
  Before the spray is white with May
      Or blooms the eglantine.”