"If one evening in the Master's service will spoil anything it surely
ought to be spoiled," Mrs. Roberts answered, serenely.

"But, Flossy,"--with a touch of impatience in her voice,--"what is the
use? Wouldn't the dining-room answer every purpose; be to them the most
elegant room they ever beheld, and be less likely to suffer from their
contact?"

The busy little mistress of all the beauty around her turned to her
guest with a peculiar smile on her face, half mischievous and wholly
sweet, as she said:--

"I want them to get used to parlors, my dear; they may have much to do
with them, as well as with dining-rooms."

"They are more likely to have to do with penitentiaries and prisons,"
Gracie said; but she abandoned discussion, and gave herself to the
pleasure of arranging lonely flowers in their lovely vases.

There was a divided house as to the probability of the guests
appearing,--Mr. Roberts inclining to the belief that some of them would
come, while Gracie was entirely skeptical. Mrs. Roberts kept her own
counsel, neither expressing wish nor fear, but steadily pushing her
preparations.

As a matter of fact, the entire seven appeared together, promptly, as
the clock struck eight.

At the last moment Dick Bolton, the usual leader, finding himself in a
minority of one, not to be outwitted, protested that he had not the