The very next morning Mrs. Salisbury awakened with a dull headache.
Hot sunlight was streaming into the bedroom, an odor of coffee,
drifting upstairs, made her feel suddenly sick. Her first thought
was that she COULD not have Sandy's two friends to luncheon, and she
COULD not keep a shopping and tea engagement with a friend of her
own! She might creep through the day somehow, but no more.

She dressed slowly, fighting dizziness, and went slowly downstairs,
sighing at the sight of disordered music and dust in the dining-
room, the sticky chafing-dish and piled plates in the pantry. In the
kitchen was a litter of milk bottles, saucepans, bread and crumbs
and bread knife encroaching upon a basket of spilled berries, egg
shells and melting bacon. The blue sides of the coffee-pot were
stained where the liquid and grounds had bubbled over it. Marthe was
making toast, the long fork jammed into a plate hole of the range.
Mrs. Salisbury thought that she had never seen sunlight so
mercilessly hot and bright before--

"Rotten coffee!" said Mr. Salisbury cheerfully, when his wife took
her place at the table.

"And she NEVER uses the poacher!" Alexandra added reproachfully.
"And she says that the cream is sour because the man leaves it at
half-past four, right there in the sunniest corner of the porch--
can't he have a box or something, Mother?"

"Gosh, I wouldn't care what she did if she'd get a move on," said
Stanford frankly. "She's probably asleep out there, with her head in
the frying pan!"