maiden sense of alienation even with her son. She would have been
much happier with a daughter, although she was very fond of her son.

One afternoon in May, a short time after Mrs. Van Dorn and Mrs. Lee
had made their circuit of calls which had included her, some other
ladies were making the rounds in the calling-coach, which drew up
before her door. There were three ladies, two of them unmarried. They
were an elder aunt, her young unmarried niece, and a married lady who
had been the girl friend of the aunt. They made a long call, and Mrs.
Anderson entertained them with tea in her pink-and-gold china cups,
with cream in the little family silver cream-jug, and with slices of
pound-cake. It was an old custom of Mrs. Anderson's which she had
copied all through her married life from Madam Anderson, Randolph's
grandmother, the widow of old Dr. Anderson, the clergyman.

"I always make it a custom, my dear, to keep pound-cake on hand, and
have some of the best green tea in the caddy, and then when callers
come of an afternoon I can offer them some refreshment," she had said
when her son's wife first came to live with her. So Mrs. Anderson had
antedated the modern fashion in Banbridge, but she did not keep a
little, ornate tea-table in her parlor. The cake and tea were brought
in by the one maid on a tray covered with a polka-dotted damask.

This afternoon the callers had their cake and tea, and lingered long
afterwards. Now and then Mrs. Anderson glanced imperceptibly at the
window, thinking her son might pass. She regarded the unmarried aunt
and the young niece with asides of reflection even while she talked
to them. The niece was not pretty, but her bloom of youth under the
roses of her spring hat was ravishing. The aunt had never been
pretty; and, moreover, her bloom had gone, but she was well dressed,