"Missy no come!" Kow answered, unruffled. "Him say no can come!"

"Cherry!" Peter shouted. "Did Alix say she wasn't coming to
lunch?"

"N-n-not to me!" Cherry answered from the garden. She came up to
the porch, with her hands full of short-stemmed roses.

"Him go flend house," Kow elucidated. "Fiend heap sick!"

"Mrs. Garvin?" Cherry questioned. "Did she stay at Mrs. Garvin's
for lunch? Perhaps it's the Garvin baby," she added to Peter. "She
said she was going to stop in!"

"I'll find out!" Peter was conscious that everything was beginning
to tremble and thrill again, as he went to the telephone. "Why,
yes," he said, coming back to the porch, "the baby arrived just
before she got there, and they were all upset. She's in her glory,
of course. Says that she'll be home to supper, even if she goes
back!"

"Oh!" Cherry said, in a small voice. She sat down at the table,
and shook out her napkin. Peter sat down, too, and, as usual,
served. Kow came and went, and a silence deepened and spread and
grew more and more terrible every instant.

It was a Sunday, foggy and overcast, but not cold. The vines about
the porch were covered with tiny beads of moisture; among the
bushes in the garden little scarfs and veils of fog were caught,