Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/32

 platter of chicken pie graced the center of the board, and when that had been brought in, steaming, host and guests drew up their chairs hungrily. Only Mehitable and Charity, like shy country mice, remained in the background. Mistress Ranfield, at one end of the table, paid them not the slightest attention; but finally her husband, glancing up from his plate, spoke in surprise.

"How now?" he ejaculated. "Like ye not the food or the company, young mistresses? Which be it?"

"Neither, sir," answered Mehitable politely. She hesitated. Tis just that we feel our mother would—would not like us to eat wi' strangers in a public room," she tried to explain.

There was a sniff from Mistress Ranfield's end of the table, a mutter of "Fiddlesticks!" and Charity looked as though she were about to weep from embarrassment. Fortunately, however, the other guests were much too engrossed in the platter of chicken, which had begun to circulate about the board, to notice the little scene, and Master Ranfield, with true kindliness and a reproachful glance at his wife, soon had the two girls supplied with a little table of their own, with an ample and goodly supply of food to grace it which, despite Mistress Ranfield's scowl, the sisters proceeded to enjoy.

After supper, the three masculine guests, the