Margaret said helplessly.

"Dinner!" screamed the nine-year-old Robert, breaking into the room at
this point, and "Dinner!" said Mrs. Paget, wearily, cheerfully, from
the chair into which she had dropped at the head of the table. Mr.
Paget, revived by sympathy, milk toast, and Rebecca's attentions, took
his place at the foot, and Bruce the chair between Margaret and his
mother. Like the younger boys, whose almost confluent freckles had
been brought into unusual prominence by violently applied soap and
water, and whose hair dripped on their collars, he had brushed up for
dinner, but his negligee shirt and corduroy trousers were stained and
spotted from machine oil. Margaret, comparing him secretly to the men
she knew, as daintily groomed as women, in their spotless white, felt
a little resentment that Bruce's tired face was so contented, and said
to herself again that it was all wrong.

Dinner was the same old haphazard meal with which she was so familiar;
Blanche supplying an occasional reproof to the boys, Ted ignoring his
vegetables, and ready in an incredibly short time for a second cutlet,
and Robert begging for corn syrup, immediately after the soup, and
spilling it from his bread. Mrs. Paget was flushed, her disappearances
kitchenward frequent. She wanted Margaret to tell her all about Mr.
Tenison. Margaret laughed, and said there was nothing to tell.

"You might get a horse and buggy from Peterson's," suggested Mrs.
Paget, interestedly, "and drive about after dinner."

"Oh, Mother, I don't think I had better let him come!" Margaret said.
"There's so many of us, and such confusion, on Sunday! Ju and Harry
are almost sure to come over."