"Oh, I shan't work on that job all day. It's too much bother. I'll dig the stuff out gradually. I'll have to throw most of it away anyhow. I've got everything I own in that pile. I suppose I'd better get dressed--What did you say about the morning gathering,--is it a ceremonial affair?" "Well, the girls have liked to do it that way,--all come in a bunch after their home doings." "That's very nice, really picturesque! I suppose they're all a lot of comfort to you, living alone this way. Do they dine here to-day? How about Tom and Phil?" It was clear from her tone that the identity of his guests was a negligible matter. She mentioned her former husband without emotion, and her tone implied no particular interest in the answer. "We were all of us to dine with Josie to-day; we sort o' move around, and it's her turn; but if you'd rather stay here we'll have dinner together or any way you like. Tom never mixes up in the dinner parties. But Phil will be here after a while; say about eleven. You'd better be ready." "Certainly; I'll get into some other clothes right away." She stood, lifted her arms, and stretched herself lazily. "It's nice to see you looking so well; but Sarah confided to me when she brought up my breakfast that you eat altogether too much. Sarah's very nice; I like Sarah. And I can see that Jerry dotes on you. You're pampered, Amzi; I can see that you don't resist the temptation to stuff yourself with Sarah's cooking. I'd be a roly-poly myself if I didn't cut off starch and sweets now and then." There was a sound of steps at the front door, followed by a prolonged tinkle of the doorbell. Amzi glanced up to make sure she was out of sight. He heard her humming as she passed down the hall to her room and then he rubbed his head vigorously as though rallying his wits in readiness for the invasion, and flung open the door. The two young Amzis and little Susan greeted him effusively and he yielded himself with avuncular meekness to their embraces. They had come bearing gifts which they bestowed upon him noisily, while the remainder of the delegation crowded in. His three sisters kissed him in succession, in the ascending order of age, and he shook hands with his brothers-in-law. "Morning, Amzi!" "Morning, Lawrence!" "Morning, Amzi!" "Morning, Paul!" "Morning, Amzi!" "Morning, Alec!" These greetings were as stiff as those that pass between a visiting statesman and the local yeomanry at a rural reception. Lawrence, Paul, and Alec undoubtedly hated this perfunctory annual tribute to the head of the house of Montgomery, but Amzi liked the perpetuation of his father's house as a family center. It did not matter that greed and sentimentalism were back of his sisters' stubborn devotion to the Montgomery tradition; with him it was an honest sentiment; and as to their avarice, to which he was not insensible, it should be said that charity was not least among his rugged virtues.