And to this also Miss La Sarthe agreed. So Miss Roberta joyfully found
Halcyone out upon the second terrace and imparted to her the good news.
They would arrange flowers in the épergne, she suggested--a few sweet
williams and mignonette and a foxglove or two. A pretty posy fixed in
sand, such as she remembered there always was in their gala days.
Halcyone was enchanted at the prospect.

"Oh! dear Aunt Roberta, do let me do it all," she said. "You sit here on
the bench and I will run and fetch the épergne--and we can pick what we
think best. Or--don't you think just a big china bowl full of sweet peas
would be prettier? The sand might show and, and--the épergne is rather
stiff."

But Miss Roberta looked aggrieved. The épergne with its gold and silver
fern leaves climbing up a thin stalk of glass to its top dish for fruit
had always come out for dinner parties and she liked not innovations. It
was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the
same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with care to be smuggled
away, leaving the sweet peas sole occupants of the sand. But the effect
was very festive and the two carried their work into the dining-room
well pleased.

The best Sèvres dinner-set was had out, which that traveler Timothy had
brought from Paris among other things, and the best cut glass and
rat-tailed silver. Old William, assisted by Hester and Priscilla, had
been busy polishing most of the day--while the cook and the "young
person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen.
And punctually at seven in broad daylight, the three Misses La Sarthe,
the two elder in their finest mauve silk evening dresses, awaited their