While she was doing this, Grace Kendall ran in with her arms full of lovely roses that had been sent to her mother that morning. She said her mother wished to share them with the Copleys. Grace put the flowers into water and sat down with another spoon to help. Before long the delicious pink and gold mixture was put away on the ice all ready for night. Grace helped scrape the potatoes and dust the living room, then went home promising to be on hand early and help entertain the strange guests. Somehow Grace seemed to understand all about both of them and to be tremendously interested in the whole affair. Cornelia went about her pretty living room putting the last touches everywhere, setting a blue bowl of roses at just the right angle on the table, putting an especially lovely half-open bud in a tall, slender glass on the bookcase, pushing a chair into place, turning a magazine and a book into inviting positions. She kept thinking how glad she was for this new girl friend, this girl who, though a little younger, yet seemed to understand so well. She sighed as she touched the roses lovingly, and recognized a fleeting impossible wish that her brother might have chosen to be interested in a girl like this one instead of the gum-chewing, ill-bred child with whom he seemed to be pairing off. The children were so excited when they arrived at noon that she had difficulty in persuading them to eat any lunch. They ate the sandwiches and drank the milk she had set out for them, in one swallow, it seemed to her; and then they flew to the tasks that had been assigned to them. Harry brought in armfuls of wood and stowed them neatly away in the big locker by the fireside, and built up a beautifully scientific fire ready to light. It was a lovely warm spring day, but with all the windows open in the evening a good fire in the fireplace would be quite acceptable and altogether too charming to omit. He swept the hearth, and then went out and scrubbed the front steps, swept the front walk, and mowed the little patch of lawn, trimming the edges till it looked like a well-groomed park. Meantime Louise and her sister set the table with the air of one who decks a bride. It was so nice to use the table full length, to spread the beautifully laundered cloth, mother’s only “best” cloth that was left, treasured from the years of plenty; to set the best china and glass in place, and make the most of the small stock of nicely polished silver. And then the crystal bowl of roses in the centre of each end made such a difference in the glory of the whole thing! “Wasn’t it dear of her to send them?” exclaimed Louise, pulling a great luscious bud over to droop at just the right angle.