The appearance of the housekeeper’s face in the doorway hushed the talk in the kitchen. Mrs. Griggs bore a message from Mr. Stephen, and to Mr. Stephen she presently returned. With all her cares on this supreme morning, Mrs. Griggs’s greatest solicitude was for her master. Not that she ever thought of him by that title. If he had been her elder brother she could not have felt herself more of a sister to him, nor could she have been more anxious lest his wilfulness in the matter of the house-party prove too much for his frail strength. She had insisted with a firm hand that he remain in bed until the latest possible moment, and now that, an hour before train-time, she allowed him to get up, it was still to refuse him the trip he wanted, in his invalid chair, about the lower rooms, to see that all was as he could wish. "You know very well," said she, "that I’ve not worked for three weeks getting ready, for nothing. Everything’s perfect, if I do say it. You can trust me. And there’s no use using up what little gimp you’ve got." This was indisputable. "I suppose I haven’t much ’gimp,’" Mr. Kingsley admitted, with his patient smile, "though I really feel as if I were possessed of a trifle more than usual, this morning, Mrs. Griggs." "’Tisn’t reliable," his house-keeper responded with conviction. "It’s merely excitement, Mr. Stephen, and it’s likely to leave you flatter than ever if you go to counting on it." This also being highly probable, Mr. Kingsley submitted to her judgment, and in his own sitting-room, a large and comfortable apartment, across the wide hall from the more formal parlour, awaited his guests, himself in as festal array as he could compass. Instead of his usual dressing-gown he wore a frock-coat, of somewhat old-fashioned cut but of irreproachable freshness. (Mrs. Griggs had a method of her own for insuring the integrity of garments laid away, a method which endued them with no unpleasant preservative odours.) In his buttonhole gleamed a sprig of glossy holly, rich with berries—his hands trembled a little as he adjusted it. Unquestionably it was an exciting morning for Mr. Stephen Kingsley; he had need, as Mrs. Griggs had sagely urged, to conserve all his energies for the drafts that were to be made upon them. From his window he watched Israel, his reliable man-of-all work, drive off with the old family carriage and horses to the village station, two miles away, to meet the morning train, on which part of his guests were due. Others would come by trolley, still others, the most prosperous of the family, by private motor conveyance of their own, from the city, thirty miles away. And now, in due time, the first of his Christmas guests were at his door, and Mrs. Griggs, wearing her best black-henrietta gown, her shoulders well thrown back and an expression of great dignity upon her face, was ushering them in.