On the evening of Thanksgiving Day there was an air of repressed excitement about the Cardew house.  Mademoiselle, in a new silk dress, ran about the lower floor, followed by an agitated Grayson with a cloth, for Mademoiselle was shifting ceaselessly and with trembling hands vases of flowers, and spilling water at each shift.  At six o’clock had arrived a large square white box, which the footman had carried to the rear and there exhibited, allowing a palpitating cook, scullery maid and divers other excitable and emotional women to peep within.

After which he tied it up again and carried it upstairs.

At seven o’clock Elinor Cardew, lovely in black satin, was carried down the stairs and placed in a position which commanded both the hall and the drawing-room.  For some strange reason it was essential that she should see both.

At seven-thirty came in a rush: 

(a)—­Mr. Alston Denslow, in evening clothes and gardenia, and feeling in his right waist-coat pocket nervously every few minutes.

(b)—­An excited woman of middle age, in a black silk dress still faintly bearing the creases of five days in a trunk, and accompanied by a mongrel dog, both being taken upstairs by Grayson, Mademoiselle, Pink, and Howard Cardew. ("He said Jinx was to come,” she explained breathlessly to her bodyguard.  “I never knew such a boy!”)

(c)—­Mr. Davis, in a frock coat and white lawn tie, and taken upstairs by Grayson, who mistook him for the bishop.

(d)—­Aunt Caroline, in her diamond dog collar and purple velvet, and determined to make the best of things.

(e)—­The real bishop this time, and his assistant, followed by a valet with a suitcase, containing the proper habiliments for a prince of the church while functioning. (A military term, since the Bishop had been in the army.)

(f)—­A few unimportant important people, very curious, and the women uncertain about the proper garb for a festive occasion in a house of mourning.

(g)—­Set of silver table vases, belated.

(h)—­Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks, Mayor and Mayoress-elect.  Extremely dignified.

(i)—­An overfull taxicab, containing inside it Ellen, Edith, Dan and Joe.  The overflow, consisting of a tall young man, displaying repressed excitement and new evening clothes, with gardenia, sat on the seat outside beside the chauffeur and repeated to himself a sort of chant accompanied by furious searchings of his pockets.  “Money.  Checkbook.  Tickets.  Trunk checks,” was the burden of his song.

(j)—­Doctor Smalley and Annabelle.  He left Annabelle outside.

* * * * *

The city moved on about its business.  In thousands of homes the lights shone down on little family groups, infinitely tender little groups.  The workers of the city were there, the doors shut, the fires burning.  To each man the thing he had earned, not the thing that he took.  To all men the right to labor, to love, and to rest.  To children, the right to play.  To women, the hearth, and the peace of the hearth.  To lovers, love, and marriage, and home.