Miss Ruth gave her hair a little pat over each ear, and felt a thrill of forgotten vanity.
"It's high time you were down, Ruth," cried Miss Deborah, who stood on the rug in front of the blazing fire, rubbing her hands nervously together,--"high time!" "Why, they won't be here for a quarter of an hour yet, sister," protested Miss Ruth.
"Well, you should be here! I do hope they won't be late; the venison is to be taken out of the tin kitchen precisely at five minutes of seven.
Do, pray, sister, step into the hall and see what o'clock it is.

I really am afraid they are late." Miss Ruth went, but had scarcely crossed the threshold when Miss Deborah cried, "Come back, come back, Ruth! You must be here when they come," and then bustled away herself to fetch the housemaid to be ready to open the door, though, as Miss Ruth had said, it was a good quarter of an hour before the most impatient guest might be expected.
Miss Ruth went about, straightening a chair, or pulling an antimacassar to one side or the other, or putting an ornament in a better light, and then stopping to snuff the candles in the brass sconces on either side of the old piano.

This and her anxiety about the venison fretted Miss Deborah so much, it was a great relief to hear the first carriage, and catch a glimpse of Mrs.Dale hurrying across the hall and up the stairs, her well-known brown satin tucked up to avoid a speck of mud or dust.
Miss Deborah plucked Miss Ruth's sleeve, and, settling the lace at her own throat and wrists, bade her sister stand beside her on the rug.

"And do, dear Ruth, try and have more repose of manner," she said, breathing quite quickly with excitement.
When Mrs.Dale entered, rustling in her shiny satin, with Mr.Dale shambling along behind her, the sisters greeted her with that stately affection which was part of the occasion.
"So glad to see you, dear Adele," said Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth in turn; and Mrs.Dale responded with equal graciousness, and no apparent recollection that they had almost quarreled that very morning at the post-office, when Mrs.Dale said that the first cloth to be removed at a dinner should be folded in fours, and Miss Deborah that it should be folded in threes.
Mr.Denner was the next to arrive, and while he was still making his bow the Forsythes came in; Dick looking over the heads of the little ladies, as though in search of some one else, and his mother languidly acknowledging that it was an effort to come out in the evening.

Lois and the rector came with Colonel Drayton, and Miss Deborah breathed a sigh of relief that the venison would not be kept waiting.
Then Miss Deborah took Mrs.Forsythe's arm, while Miss Ruth and Dick closed the little procession, and they marched into the dining-room, and took their places about the table, glittering with silver and glass, and lighted by gleaming wax tapers.