Now will you go into your mother's room and find your
way downstairs by yourself? Julia, will you show Mr. Hamilton the barn a
little later, while Nancy and I get supper? Kitty must go to the
Pophams' for Peter; he is spending the afternoon with them."
Nancy had enough presence of mind to intercept Kitty and hiss into her
ear: "Borrow a loaf of bread from Mrs. Popham, we are short; and see if
you can find any way to get strawberries from Bill Harmon's; it was to
have been a bread-and-milk supper on the piazza, to-night, and it must
be hurriedly changed into a Consular banquet! _Verb. sap._ Fly!"
Gilbert turned up a little before six o'clock and was introduced proudly
by his mother as a son who had just "gone into business."
"I'm Bill Harmon's summer clerk and delivery boy," he explained. "It's
great fun, and I get two dollars and a half a week."
Nancy and her mother worked like Trojans in the kitchen, for they agreed
it was no time for economy, even if they had less to eat for a week
to come.
"Mr. Hamilton is just as nice as I guessed he was, when his first letter
came," said Nancy. "I went upstairs to get a card for the supper menu,
and he was standing by your mantelpiece with his head bent over his
arms. He had the little bunch of field flowers in his hand, and I know
he had been smelling them, and looking at his mother's picture, and
remembering things!"
What a merry supper it was, with a jug of black-eyed Susans in the
centre of the table and a written bill of fare for Mr.
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