Another orgy of chickens, and Alice's hope of a new hat, bright vision which still beckoned her afar off, would vanish forever.
The motor was an elegant but melancholy-looking affair. The man who sat in it was decorous and elderly and sad of appearance.
"Who's come?" asked Sara. Then she whispered to her mother, "Do you suppose it's Brewsters?"
"Certainly not," said Alice shortly. "Of course it isn't! It couldn't be."
"Why couldn't it?" asked Sara, still in her hushed whisper. She clung closer to her mother and shivered theatrically. Seeing that her child hoped it was Brewsters, Alice longed to shake her.
In the sitting-room she heard the voice of her Mother-in-law, pitched in the tones of one who is making conversation under difficulties, the voice of one who, even in the presence of pain and suffering, will not be down-hearted. There was even a note of defiance in her relative's voice. Alice felt this even before her eyes fell upon the three black-robed visitors. They all rose at her entrance and held out six crepe-laden arms to greet her.
"Oh, my dear," they said, and a hint of tears was in their voices, "how like your dear mother you are!"
They spoke in a tone as though Alice's mother were recently dead. One could have sworn they had come on a visit of condolence. Had Alice not received a cheerful letter from her mother that very morning she might have thought them the bearers of sinister news. As it was, she choked back with difficulty her desire to laugh. She knew if she did laugh she would continue to laugh until she wept, for hysteria lay behind it.
She managed, however, to greet them appropriately, but without her eyes meeting those of her Mother-in-law,
