Mamzelle was, characteristically, sitting on the bed still in her overcoat, a worn moleskin that she had bought in Paris eons before and that made her look rather like a mole herself, with her eager sniffy nose and small piercing eyes. She had taken up Le Fanal Bleu that Christina had placed on the bed table, and was already absorbed.

“Darling thing.” Christina ran to sit beside her and kiss her. “The journey was not too much for you? You must have a little rest now. Let me hang up your coat and tuck you in under the quilt—a little snooze with Colette.”

Mamzelle laughed her silvery laugh. “You give me a strange bedfellow.”

“Oh, it’s a work of genius.”

While Christina deftly hung up clothes, a wrapper and the coat, Mamzelle watched her.

“Why do you limp like that? All this is much too much for you. I told you that you must have servants if you came up here alone with Cornelius. Now, you see.”

“But, darling, this is just my old arthritic knee, and the best thing I can do is to be forced to keep moving!”

“Humph,” Mamzelle sniffed. “If you enjoy martyrizing yourself!”

“Now rest. I have to go down and baste the turkey.” And Christina leaned over to kiss Mamzelle’s cheek. How much she preferred the old woman’s astringency and carping to Sybille’s always-somehow-false politeness!

“I shall take off my skirt. No use crumpling the only decent garment I have left.”

By this time Christina had to go, for she heard Olivia calling, “Mother, where are you?”

“Coming! I didn’t hear the car—so busy getting people settled. Oh, darling child!” And there at the foot of the stairs they gave each other a warm hug.

“You’re all right? You’ve managed all this alone? What can I do to help?”

“Don’t you want to unpack?”

“Heavens, no. That can wait.” And they went, arm in arm, to the kitchen, where Christina basted the turkey and turned the creamed onions out into a casserole and melted butter for the crumbs that would decorate the top, while Olivia opened a tin of nuts and began to wash celery.

“Where are the children?”

“Outdoors, I expect. Only Robin and Comfort are here so far. You know how they have to go out first, just like animals—smell the old smells. They are probably in the barn looking for a barn owl or something.—Oh, yes, the olives too. John brought them—over there.”

“I brought champagne—three bottles. Do you think it will be enough? I’d better go and get that and put it on ice.”

“Champagne! How marvelous! What an extravagant creature you are!”

“Mamzelle loves it, you know.”