Craig had been differently employed. He always made some changes in his toilet before supper, and this afternoon he took a little more pains with it than usual, although it was not likely that he would see the ladies that night. As his mother was gone, he took his supper alone, and with his quick eye saw that two or three pieces of china and glass were missing. He might not have given it a second thought if he had not heard Mr. Taylor telling a boarder that the rooms for Miss Tracy were in apple pie order, and the table sot for supper in the _saloon_, with the best linen and china and silver. The missing articles were accounted for. They were adorning the table in the _saloon_. Boston had gone down in the scale, and New York was in the ascendant. “I don’t object,” he thought, “so long as she leaves us a china tea cup. I should not like those thick things I see on some of the tables.” After his supper he went round to the west piazza, and, walking up and down, glanced into the room where the table was laid for three, and looked very inviting with its snowy linen, china and glass. He recognized the cream jug and sugar bowl which had done duty for his mother and himself, and was glad they were there. It seemed right and proper that the Tracys, as new-comers, should take the precedence. He was getting quite interested in them, and when he saw there were no flowers on the table he asked Sarah, the house-maid, if she had forgotten them. “We hain’t any but flag lilies, and I didn’t know as they’d be pretty. I’ll pick some if you say so,” she said. He knew she meant the fleurs-de-lis, of which he had seen great clumps from his window. They were blue,—his color,—and he followed Sarah to the garden, where she gathered a large bunch of the lilies together with some young ferns growing near them. “They do look pretty,” she said, admiring the effect, as she placed them in the centre of the table. “Be you acquainted with the ladies?” “No, I am not, but I know city people like to find fresh flowers in their rooms when they go into the country,” Craig replied, and then, as it was nearly time for his mother’s train from East Ridgefield, he went to meet her. As he was walking with her up the long hill from the station he told her of the expected arrivals, and asked if she had ever seen the ladies. “Once when I called on some friends at the United States, in Saratoga, the mother and daughter were in the parlors, and were pointed out to me. I remember thinking them very showily dressed, and that Mrs. Tracy’s diamond ear-rings were quite too large for good taste. The daughter had half a dozen young men around her,” was Mrs. Mason’s reply, and her chin gave a tilt in the air, which Craig knew was indicative of her disapproval of the Tracys. Craig told her of Mrs. Taylor’s elation on account of her distinguished guests, and of the removal of the cream jug and sugar bowl from the table to the salon.