SHE SHALL COME?
Supper was ready.

It had been ready now for ten minutes.

The cool, white cloth, bright glass, glittering silver, and delicate china painted with a primrose and an ivy-leaf--the best china, and very extravagant in Gypsy, of course, but she thought the occasion deserved it--were all laid in their places upon the table.

The tea was steeped to precisely the right point; the rich, mellow flavor had just escaped the clover taste on one side, and the bitterness of too much boiling on the other; the delicately sugared apples were floating in their amber juices in the round glass preserve-dish, the smoked halibut was done to the most delightful brown crispness, the puffy, golden drop-cakes were smoking from the oven, and Patty was growling as nobody but Patty could growl, for fear they would "slump down intirely an' be gittin' as heavy as lead," before they could be eaten.
There was a bright fire in the dining-room grate; the golden light was dancing a jig all over the walls, hiding behind the curtains, coquetting with the silver, and touching the primroses on the plates to a perfect sunbeam; for father and mother were coming.

Tom and Gypsy and Winnie were all three running to the windows and the door every two minutes and dressed in their very "Sunday-go-to-meeting best;" for father and mother were coming.