She went down-stairs to occupy her chair in the parlor, her seat at the table, to be overlooked by the fine people who took no interest whatever in the "Websters' companion." She hated them all. She had watched them too grow old with a profound satisfaction for which she reproached herself. Even wealth had not done for them what she felt it could have done for her. The first carriage drove up as she reached the foot of the stair. The front door had been opened by the maid as it approached, and the rain beat in. There was no _porte-cochère_; the guests were obliged to run up the steps to avoid a drenching. The fashionable Mrs. Holt draggled her skirts, and under her breath anathematized her host. "It will be the happiest day of my life when this sort of thing is over," she muttered. "Thank heaven, he can't live much longer!" "Hush!" whispered her prudent husband; Miss Webster had appeared. The two women kissed each other affectionately. Everybody liked Miss Webster. Mrs. Holt, an imposing person, with the rigid backbone of the newly rich, held her hostess's hand in both her own as she assured her that the storm had not visited California which could keep her from one of dear Dr. Webster's delightful dinners. As she went up-stairs to lay aside her wrappings she relieved her feelings by a facial pucker directed at a painting, on a matting panel, of the doctor in the robes of Japan. The other guests arrived, and after making the pilgrimage up-stairs, seated themselves in the front parlor to slide up and down the horse-hair furniture and await the entrance of the doctor. The room was funereal. The storm-ridden trees lashed the bare dripping windows. The carpet was threadbare. White crocheted tidies lent their emphasis to the hideous black furniture. A table, with marble top, like a graveyard slab, stood in the middle of the room. On it was a bunch of wax flowers in a glass case. On the white plastered walls hung family photographs in narrow gilt frames. In a conspicuous place was the doctor's diploma. In another, Miss Webster's first sampler. "The first piano ever brought to California" stood in a corner, looking like the ghost of an ancient spinet. Miss Williams half expected to find it some day standing on three legs, resting the other.