The Imperialist by Sara Jeannette Duncan Read Free Book Online

expect he’ll be wanting his tea,” replied Mr. Murchison. “He’s got you in the right place on the list for that, mother – as usual.”
    “I’d just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea the day he was coming to our house,” declared Stella. “But he
generally
has too much sense.”
    “You boys,” said Mrs. Murchison, turning back to her sons, “will see that you’re on hand that evening. And I hope the Doctor will rub it in about the prayer meeting.” Mrs. Murchison chuckled. “I saw it went home to both of you, and well it might. Yes; I think I may as well expect him to tea. He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it myself.”
    “We’ll get Abby over,” said Mr. Murchison. “That’ll please the Doctor.”
    “I must say,” remarked Stella, “he seems to think a lot more of Abby now that she’s Mrs. Episcopal Johnson.”
    “Yes, Abby and Harry must come,” said Mrs. Murchison, “and I was thinking of inviting Mr. and Mrs. Horace Williams. We’ve been there till I’m ashamed to look them in the face. And I’ve pretty well decided,” she added autocratically, “to have chicken salad. So if Dr. Drummond has made up his mouth for scalloped oysters he’ll be disappointed.”
    “Mother,” announced Stella, “I’m perfectly certain you’ll have both.”
    “I’ll consider it,” replied her mother. “Meanwhile we would be better employed in thinking of what we have been hearing. That’s the third sermon from the Book of Job in six weeks. I must say, with the whole of the two Testaments to select from, I don’t see why the Doctor should be so taken up with Job.”
    Stella was vindicated; Mrs. Murchison did have both. The chicken salad gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked delicious at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena was entrusted with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had never yet had a successor that was any hand with company. Mrs. Murchison had enough to do to pour out the tea. It was a table to do anybody credit, with its glossy damask and the old-fashioned silver and best china that Mrs. Murchison had brought as a bride to her housekeeping – for, thank goodness, her mother had known what was what in such matters – a generous attractive table that you took some satisfaction in looking at. Mrs. Murchison came of a family of noted housekeepers; where she got her charm I don’t know. Six o’clock tea, and that the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, and a good enough rule for Mrs. Murchison, who had no patiencewith the innovation of a late dinner recently adopted by some people who could keep neither their servants nor their digestions in consequence. It had been a crisp October day; as Mr. Murchison remarked, the fall evenings were beginning to draw in early; everybody was glad of the fire in the grate and the closed curtains. Dr. Drummond had come about five, and the inquiries and comments upon family matters that the occasion made incumbent had been briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the pastoral visit and the practical interest that relieved it. And he had thought, on the whole, that he might manage to stay to tea, at which Mrs. Murchison’s eyes twinkled as she said affectionately –
    “Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off.”
    Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr. and Mrs. Williams, just a trifle late for etiquette, but well knowing that it mustn’t be enough to spoil the biscuits. Dr. Drummond, in the place of honour, had asked the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semi-official character of the occasion having been delivered, was in the best of humours. The Murchisons were not far wrong in the happy divination that he liked coming to their house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he expanded in its humour, its irregularity, its sense of temperament. They were doubtful