Come on!" That first supper in the white house by the shore was an experience for Mary-'Gusta.

Mrs.Hobbs, in spite of her faultfinding and temper, had been a competent and careful housekeeper.

Meals which she prepared were well cooked and neatly served.

This meal was distinctly different.
There was enough to eat--in fact, an abundance--fried cod and the fried potatoes and hot biscuits and dried-apple pie; but everything was put upon the table at the same time, and Mr.Chase sat down with the others and did not even trouble to take off his apron.

The tablecloth was not very clean and the knives and forks and spoons did not glitter like those the child had been accustomed to see.
Even Mr.Hamilton, to whom most of the things of this world--his beloved store excepted--seemed to be unessential trivialities, spoke of the table linen.
"Seems to me," he observed, in his gentle and hesitating way, "this tablecloth's sort of spotted up.