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not occur to her on this occasion.
    When Sylvester began to boast how he had translated Cicero at the age of eight, she could hardly suppress a yawn. She wanted to run down the path after Harry and Sukey, and play with the kitten.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Although the social life of Apple Hill was not dull, Rosalind was not accustomed to entertaining both morning and night. Lord Sylvester and Harwell had to be offered wine and biscuits before leaving that morning, which made the afternoon doubly busy in preparing for the dinner party.
    At Dick’s suggestion, done to please Annabelle, it had been enlarged to include more guests and some dancing after for the younger folks. A large party, Annabelle decreed, must include Lady Amanda Vaughan. Annabelle had a great hankering after titles. Dick, thinking to help his sister, took the misguided notion of asking Annabelle over to give her a hand.
    “Oh, you are planning to serve turbot and mutton again, are you?” was her comment when Rosalind outlined the main features of the menu. “I hope Lord Sylvester does not find it hopelessly rustic. I had thought you might be serving lobster and perhaps a ragout to impress him. Or oysters. Oysters would be a pleasant change.”
    “Cook is making her mulligatawny soup,” Rosalind said apologetically. Annabelle had experience of London cuisine and was therefore listened to with interest.
    “Pity there would not be time to make a turtle soup. It is all the crack in London, but one must make arrangements for the turtle days in advance. Well, so long as you are not serving apple tart and cheese for dessert.”
    Here, at least, Rosalind felt she was on firm ground. “No indeed. Cook is making a Chantilly, and the gardener has some melons in the conservatory that he tells me are ripe enough to serve.”
    “That is a good start,” Annabelle allowed. “Is there time to prepare an ice?”
    “I fear not. It is only a simple dinner party, Annabelle. You know it takes an age to make ices.”
    “I doubt Lord Sylvester is accustomed to simple meals. We shall call it potluck. That is the excuse for country fare in London. Let me make up a centerpiece for the table. I am a bit of a dab at that.”
    Rosalind heaved a sigh of relief as she sent her troublesome helper off to the garden, armed with shears and a cutting basket. The elaborate centerpiece that was eventually placed in the center of the table hardly suggested a potluck dinner. It was quite two feet high and half again as wide. It would be impossible for the diners to see the company seated on the other side of the table. Yet it was certainly a striking arrangement, almost a miniature garden, with lilies and ferns and roses and foxglove and a bit of everything else in the garden.
    “Monsieur Gervase, in London, gives lessons to ladies in flower arranging,” Annabelle explained, after she had accepted praise for her handiwork. “He particularly liked my originality.”
    “It’s lovely, Annabelle.”
    “And I have made up corsages for you and me, Roz. Yours is in your room. I used white roses, as I wasn’t sure what gown you planned to wear. You wore your pink one last night, so I assumed it would be the green you always wore last spring.”
    Rosalind planned to wear the pink watered silk again, but she thanked Annabelle for the corsage.
    Annabelle looked around the dining room and said, “When I take over as mistress of Apple Hill, the first thing I shall do is have this room done over. I don’t know how you can stand such a gloomy place, Roz. I always feel I am eating in a pit when I take dinner here. I shall throw a bow window out, just there on the east wall, to let in the light and give a view of the gardens. When I have these dark varnished walls painted in some light color, the room will be quite nice, don’t you think?”
    Rosalind did not think Dick would want the wall torn apart with a bow window, but she was determined to be agreeable. “The room is certainly dark,”