With this shot they parted. Harry’s real hesitation was doubt as to what Molly might feel inclined to do; there was no denying she had been badly treated, snubbed and looked down upon. “Well, if this isn’t the strangest turn; I don’t think I ever knew my father to leave business for a day before.” “What does it mean, Harry?” Molly asked anxiously, for it had been a grief to her to feel she was the cause of estrangement. “It must mean that my father, or mother, or both, are beginning to see they’ve been in fault.” “Oh Harry, I should be so glad if you were once more all you used to be—to them.” “I shall never be that, for I shall never go back to the sort of semi-dependence I was in,—but shall we go at Christmas?” “Oh, certainly.” “I’m afraid _you_ may not have a very good time.” “Oh, yes, I shall.” “Then we accept. I tell you what, little Molly, if my father and mother had not been favorably impressed,—had they found us living as they expected, they would not have said a word about our going there.” “Oh Harry, I hope so; surely, the less comfortable you were the more you would need them.” “No, they look on it this way: as I made my bed so I must lie on it. Had the bed been a bad one, they would have said, ‘serve him right;’ as it seems much better than they thought it would be, they are inclined to think themselves wrong.” Harry loved his parents, but he knew their pride, and that they would not have openly forgiven the blow to it; but he knew, small as the house was, Molly had shown them as refined a home as their own, and they saw that, after all, their daughter-in-law would grace any station Harry might ever attain to. CHAPTER XXX. HOMINY MUFFINS—FISH BALLS—ROYAL CUSTARD—“CONSOMMÉ À LA ROYALE”—FRICASSEE SWEETBREADS—VANILLA SOUFFLÉ. THE next morning, bright and early, Molly came down-stairs. She was going to help get breakfast, as she always did whenever she had any dish new to Marta. Two or three times a week the breakfast came out of the dinner of the day before, and the stock she generally had on hand made such warmed-over dishes very different from the flavorless ones they too often are. For this reason alone she would have considered it cheap to buy a small soup-bone once a week, even if she had needed no soup, but every little drop—even half a gill—of soup that might be left was saved, and here Marta’s German training came in. Whatever she lacked in other ways, she had none of the disdain of economy, confounding it with stinginess, so common with untrained servants. Every bit of fat was put aside to try out once a week, every tea-spoonful of gravy or soup saved, and all bones put in one crock to be twice a week boiled down.