and go away again; you can't depend on them for an instant; I told her
_you_ would be here to meet her, if I wasn't--I thought I might be
late; and you mustn't let her slip. And if the Campbells happen to get
here before I'm back, don't you give them the least inkling of our
having just engaged a cook. I'm going to smuggle her into the house
without Amy's knowing it; I wouldn't have her know it for the world.
She prides herself on keeping that impudent, spoiled thing of hers,
with her two soups; and she would simply never stop crowing if she
knew I'd had to change cooks in the middle of the summer."

Roberts, picking up and dropping the multitudinous packages, and
finally sitting down with them all in his lap, very red and heated:
"I'll be careful, my dear."

Mrs. Roberts: "How flushed you are, bending over! You're so stout now,
you ought to bend sidewise; it's perfect folly, your trying to bend
_straight_ over; you'll get apoplexy. But now I _must_ run, or I shall
never be back in the world. Don't forget to look out for the cook!"

Roberts, at whom she glances with misgiving as she runs out, holding
the parcels on his knees with both elbows and one hand, and contriving
with the help of his chin to get his magazine open again: "No, no; I
won't, my dear." He loses himself in his reading, while people come
and go restlessly. A gentleman finally drops into the seat beside him,
and contemplates his absorption with friendly amusement.




II