for the sleepers.

"Len often takes a second cup of coffee when he's got lots of time,"
Lydia said.

"Well, I don't care!" Martie said, suddenly serious. "I'm going to
take my coffee black, anyway. I'm getting too fat!"

"Oh, Martie, you are not!" Sally laughed.

"That's foolish--you'll just upset your health!" her mother added
disapprovingly.

Martie's only answer was a buoyant kiss. She and Sally carried their
breakfast into the dining room, where they established themselves
comfortably at one end of the long table. While they ate, dipping
their toast in the coffee, buttering and rebuttering it, they
chattered as tirelessly as if they had been deprived of each other's
society and confidence for weeks.

The morning was dark and foggy, and a coal fire slumbered in the
grate, giving out a bitter, acrid smell. Against the windows the
soft mist pressed, showing a yellow patch toward the southeast,
where the sun would pierce it after a while.

Malcolm Monroe came downstairs at about nine o'clock, and the girls
gathered up their dishes and disappeared in the direction of the
kitchen. Not that Ma would not, as usual, prepare their father's
toast and bacon with her own hands, and not that Lydia would not, as
usual, serve it. The girls were not needed. But Pa always made it