It was a rather disjointed supper party. Julie had to vibrate constantly between kitchen and dining-room, serving the waffles, and Mrs. Johnson was forever jumping up to hand somebody something. Her idea of entertainment was to see that her guests were well fed, over-fed,--stuffed, in fact,--and conversation was left to struggle along as best it could. Little hopeful fragments of talk were started, but constantly shattered by the necessity for serving a fresh batch of waffles, or by her starting up to get out a glass of some new kind of preserve. Brother Seabrook tried bravely to converse with his hostess, but it was no easy matter. “Yes, yes,” she responded absently to some promising remark, “Now do have one of Julie’s hot waffles, Mr. Seabrook, they’re right fresh from the iron”; or, in sudden accusation, “Why, Mr. Seabrook, you haven’t one thing on your plate!” Valiantly as the poor man struggled to see the surface of his plate, he never saw it, for always as he politely got through one mountain of food, another avalanche descended upon it. He ate manfully, however, replying as best he might to Elizabeth’s insistent talk, and trying from time to time to drag Mr. Bixby into the stream of conversation, as a small boy, not too happy in the swimming-hole, tries to urge other tentative little boys upon the bank to “come on in.” But this Elizabeth always circumvented. Whenever her husband essayed a plunge into the talk, encouraged thereto by Brother Seabrook or in a moment of his own unaided daring, she immediately chased him into silence with some sharp retort. So for the most part he ate his supper without a word. He ate it, too, as though he were very hungry. Unfortunately he told his hostess that it was just about the best supper he ever did eat. He said it in an aside, but Elizabeth overheard and paused just long enough in something she was telling Brother Seabrook to pounce upon him with, “Now _that’s_ a pretty thing to say, ain’t it! Like your own wife kep’ you half starved!” After that Mr. Bixby fell out of the conversation altogether, only raising his eyes from his plate to glance from time to time at Julie as she came and went with her waffles. In her neat sprigged dress she looked soft and gentle. Her face was a little flushed; one dark strand of hair fell over her forehead, and when she turned to go back to the kitchen, he could see that there were two little ringlets that made curls at the nape of her neck.