The grown-ups followed suit,
Motor-cars began to come down the short lane that ended at the
gate of Holly Court, and joyous and chattering men and women to
come in to tea. Nancy loved this, and to see a group of men
standing about his blazing logs filled Bert's heart with pride. It
was rather demoralizing in a domestic sense, dinner was delayed,
and their bedtime consequently delayed, and Dora, the cook was
disgruntled at seven o'clock, when it was still impossible to set
the dinner table. But Nancy, rather than disturb her guests, got a
second servant, an enormous Irishwoman named Agnes, who carried
the children off quietly for a supper in the kitchen, when tea-
time callers came, and managed them far more easily than their
mother could.
Before the second summer came Nancy had come to be ashamed of some
of her economies that first summer. Taking the children informally
across the back of the empty Somers' place, and letting them bathe
on the deserted beach next to the club, wearing faded cottons, and
picknicking as near as the Half Mile Light, seemed rather shabby
performances. These things had seemed luxury a year ago, but she
wondered now how she could have done them.
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