The supper was as inviting as the dinner had been forbidding, indicating a change of policy in the kitchen cabinet. In fact, after Zibbie cooled off, she found that she was not ready for "the world to come to an end" (or its equivalent, her leaving the Waltons after so many years of service and kindness). She had not yet reached the point of abject apology, though she knew she would go down on her old rheumatic knees rather than leave her ark of refuge and go out into the turbulent waters of the world; still she made propitiating overtures in the brownest of buttered toast, and a chicken salad that might have been served as ambrosia on Mount Olympus. Zibbie was a guileless strategist, for in the success of the supper she proved how great had been her malign ingenuity and deliberation in spoiling the dinner. She could never claim that it was accidental. Hannah no longer waited as if it were a funeral occasion, and the domestic skies were fast brightening up, except in one quarter: Mr. Walton's chair was vacant, and Gregory noticed that Annie often looked wistfully and sadly toward it. With the sensitiveness of one who habitually hid his deeper feeling from the world, Gregory tried to act as if his last conversation with Annie had been upon the weather; and as might be expected of refined people, no allusion was made to the unpleasant features of the day. Neither then nor afterward was a word adverse to the Camdens spoken. They had been guests, and that was enough for the Waltons' nice sense of courtesy. Only Susie, with a little sigh of relief, gave expression to the general feeling by saying, "Somehow I feel kind of light to-night. I felt dreadfully heavy this morning." Annie, with a smile on her lips and something like a tear in her eye, noticed the child's remark by adding, "I think we should all feel light if grandpa were only here." After supper she sung to the children and told them a bedtime story, and then with a kiss of peace sent them off to their dream-wanderings. During Annie's absence from the parlor, Gregory remained in his room. He was in no mood to talk with any one else. Even Miss Eulie's gentle patter of words would fall with a sting of pain. When Annie came down to the parlor she said, "Now, Mr. Gregory, I will sing as much as you wish, to make up for last evening. Indeed I must do something to get through the hours till father's return, for I feel so anxious and self-reproachful about him." "And so make happiness for others out of your pain," said he. "Why don't you complain and fret all the evening and make it uncomfortable generally?" "I have done enough of that for one day. What will you have?" An impulse prompted him to say "You," but he only said, "Your own choice," and walked softly up and down the room while she sung, now a ballad, now a hymn, and again a simple air from an opera, but nothing light or gay.