Re-Creations by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

to mold it out into loaves and put it into the greased tins. When it was neatly tucked up under a bit of old linen she had found in the sideboard drawer, she began to prepare the meat for dinner and put it on to cook—a beautiful big pot roast. She deftly seared it with an onion in a hot frying pan and put it to simmer in boiling water with the rinsings of the browned pan, being careful to recall all her mother’s early instruction on the subject. She could remember that pot roast was always a favorite dish at home, and she herself had been longing for a taste of real home-cooked pot roast ever since she had been away.
    She fixed the fire carefully so that the meat would simmer just enough and not boil too hard and make it tough, and gave a despairing glance at the clock. How fast the minutes flew! She ought to go back upstairs, but it was a quarter to three, and she wanted to get the table set for dinner before she left so that the dining room would have a pleasant look to the children when they came home. She was quite breathless and excited over their coming. She felt as if she would be almost embarrassed before them after the conversation she had overheard in the morning.
    So she attacked the dining room with broom and duster, wiped off the windowpanes and straightened the shade, swept away a mass of miscellaneous articles from the clock shelf, cleared off the sideboard, hunted out a clean old linen cover, polished the mirror, and found a clean tablecloth. But the tablecloth had a great hole in it, and fifteen valuable minutes were wasted in finding a patch and setting it hastily in place with a needle and thread that also had to be hunted for. Then some of the dishes had to be washed before they were fit for use, as they were covered with dust from packing. And all together it was five minutes to four before Cornelia finally had that table set to her satisfaction and could stand back for a brief minute and take it in with tired but shining eyes. Would they notice the difference and be a little glad that she had come? They had taken her for a lazy snob in the morning. Would they feel any better about it now?
    And the table did look pretty. It was set as a table should be set, with dishes and glasses and silver in the correct places and napkins neatly folded, and in the center was a small pot of pink primroses in full bloom. For it would not have been Cornelia if there had not been a bit of decoration about somewhere, and it was like Cornelia when she went out to market and thought of meat and bread and milk and butter and all the other necessities, to think also of that bit of brightness and refinement and go into a small flower shop she was passing to get this pretty primrose.
    Then in panic the weary big sister brought out one loaf of gingerbread, cut several generous slices, left it on the sideboard in a welcome attitude, and fled upstairs to finish Carey’s room.
    Five minutes later, as she was struggling with the bedsprings, trying to bring them into conjunction with the headboard, she heard their hurrying feet, and leaning from the window, called, “Children! Come up here a minute and help me.”
    “I can’t,” shouted Harry with a frown. “I got a job afternoons, and I gotta hustle. I’m late a’ready, and I have to change my clo’es!” And he vanished inside the door.
    “I have to go to the store for things for dinner!” reproved the young sister stiffly, and vanished also.
    Cornelia felt suddenly in her weariness like sitting down on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter or tears. Would they never forgive her? She dropped on the floor with her head wearily back against the window and closed her eyes. She had meant to tell them about the gingerbread, but they had been in such a hurry, and somehow the spirit seemed gone out of her surprise.
    Downstairs it was very still. The children had been halted at the entrance by the appetizing odor of cooking.
    “Sniff!”
    “Oh, gee!” said Harry. “It