Margaret said nothing.  She leaned back, and, for once, her face was actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its smooth beauty.

A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on the sidewalk.

“Where have you been?” asked Margaret.  Then she said without waiting for a reply, “If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that to Lydia Greenway.”

Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly wings.

Annie Eustace rose.  She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide had greeted her, and thought them rude.  She herself had been most carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing.  She, however, did not care.  She had no especial love for children unless they were small and appealing because of helplessness.

“I must go,” she said.  “It is six o’clock, supper will be ready.”  She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white house, not two minutes’ walk distant across the street.

“How very delightful it is to be as punctual as your people are,” said Margaret.  “Good-bye, Annie.”  She spoke abstractedly, and Annie felt a little hurt.  She loved Margaret, and she missed her full attention when she left her.  She passed down the walk between Margaret’s beautifully kept Japanese trees, and gained the sidewalk.  Then a sudden recollection filled her with dismay.  She had promised her grandmother to go to the post-office before returning.  An important business letter was expected.  Annie swept the soft tail of her muslin into a little crushed ball, and ran, her slender legs showing like those of a young bird beneath its fluff of plumage.  She realized the necessity of speed, of great speed, for the post-office was a quarter of a mile away, and the Eustace family supped at five minutes past six, with terrible and relentless regularity.  Why it should have been five minutes past instead of upon the stroke of the hour, Annie had never known, but so it was.  It was as great an offence to be a minute too early as a minute too late at the Eustace house, and many a maid had been discharged for that offence, her plea that the omelet was cooked and would fall if the meal be delayed, being disregarded.  Poor Annie felt that she must hasten.  She could not be dismissed like the maid, but something equally to be dreaded would happen, were she to present herself half a minute behind time in the dining-room.  There they would be seated, her grandmother, her Aunt Harriet, and her Aunt Jane.  Aunt Harriet behind the silver tea service; Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserves; her grandmother behind the silver butter dish, and on the table would be the hot biscuits cooling, the omelet falling, the