That morning and noon had been warm, though the stirrings of a feeble breeze made weather not flagrantly intemperate¹; but at about three o'clock in the afternoon there came out of the southwest a heat like an affliction sent upon an accursed people, and the air was soon dead of it. Dripping negro ditch-diggers whooped² with satires³ praising hell and hot weather, as the tossing shovels⁴ flickered⁵ up to the street level, where sluggish⁶ male pedestrians⁷ carried coats upon hot arms, and fanned themselves with straw hats, or, remaining covered, wore soaked handkerchiefs between scalp and straw. Clerks drooped⁸ in silent, big department stores, stenographers in offices kept as close to electric fans as the intervening bulk of their employers would let them; guests in hotels left the lobbies and went to lie unclad upon their beds; while in hospitals the patients murmured querulously against the heat, and perhaps against some noisy motorist who strove to feel the air by splitting it, not troubled by any foreboding that he, too, that hour next week, might need quiet near a hospital. The “hot spell” was a true spell, one upon men's spirits; for it was so hot that, in suburban¹⁰ outskirts¹¹, golfers crept slowly back over the low undulations of their club lands, abandoning their matches and returning to shelter.  
Even on such a day, sizzling work had to be done, as in winter. There were glowing furnaces to be stoked, liquid metals to be poured; but such tasks found seasoned men standing¹² to them; and in all the city probably no brave soul challenged the heat more gamely than Mrs. Adams did, when, in a corner of her small and fiery¹³ kitchen, where all day long her hired African immune cooked fiercely, she pressed her husband's evening clothes with a hot iron. No doubt she risked her life, but she risked it cheerfully in so good and necessary a service for him. She would have given her life for him at any time, and both his and her own for her children.
 
Unconscious of her own heroism¹⁴, she was surprised to find herself rather faint when she finished her ironing. However, she took heart to believe that the clothes looked better, in spite of one or two scorched¹⁵ places; and she carried them upstairs to her husband's room before increasing blindness forced her to grope for the nearest chair. Then, trying to rise and walk, without having sufficiently¹⁶ recovered, she had to sit down again; but after a little while she was able to get upon her feet; and, keeping her hand against the wall, moved successfully to the door of her own room. Here she wavered; might have gone down, had she not been stimulated¹⁷ by the thought of how much depended upon her;—she made a final great effort, and floundered across the room to her bureau, where she kept some simple restoratives. They served her need, or her faith in them did; and she returned to her work.
 
She went down the stairs, keeping a still tremulous hand upon the rail; but she smiled brightly when Alice looked up from below, where the woodwork was again being tormented¹⁸ with superfluous¹⁹ attentions.
 
“Alice, DON'T!” her mother said, commiseratingly. “You did all that this morning and it looks lovely. What's the use of wearing yourself out on it? You ought to be lying down, so's to look fresh for to-night.”
 
“Hadn't you better lie down yourself?” the daughter returned. “Are you ill, mama?”
 
“Certainly not. What in the world makes you think so?”
 
“You look pretty pale,” Alice said, and sighed heavily. “It makes me ashamed, having you work so hard—for me.”
 
“How foolish! I think it's fun, getting ready to entertain a little again, like this. I only wish it hadn't turned so hot: I'm afraid your poor father'll suffer—his things are pretty heavy, I noticed. Well, it'll do him good to bear something for style's sake this once, anyhow!” She laughed, and coming to Alice, bent²⁰ down and kissed her. “Dearie,” she said, tenderly, “wouldn't you please slip upstairs now and take just a little teeny nap to please your mother?”
 
But Alice responded only by moving her head slowly, in token of refusal.
 
“Do!” Mrs. Adams urged. “You don't want to look worn out, do you?”
 
“I'll LOOK all right,” Alice said, huskily. “Do you like the way I've arranged the furniture now? I've tried all the different ways it'll go.”
 
“It's lovely,” her mother said, admiringly. “I thought the last way you had it was pretty, too. But you know best; I never knew anybody with so much taste. If you'd only just quit now, and take a little rest——”
 
“There'd hardly be time, even if I wanted to; it's after five but I couldn't; really, I couldn't. How do you think we can manage about Walter—to see that he wears his evening things, I mean?”
 
Mrs. Adams pondered. “I'm afraid he'll make a lot of objections, on account of the weather and everything. I wish we'd had a chance to tell him last night or this morning. I'd have telephoned to him this afternoon except—well, I scarcely like to call him up at that place, since your father——”
 
“No, of course not, mama.”
 
“If Walter gets home late,” Mrs. Adams went on, “I'll just slip out and speak to him, in case Mr. Russell's here before he comes. I'll just tell him he's got to hurry and get his things on.”
 
“Maybe he won't come home to dinner,” Alice suggested, rather hopefully. “Sometimes he doesn't.”
 
“No; I think he'll be here. When he doesn't come he usually telephones by this time to say not to wait for him; he's very thoughtful about that. Well, it really is getting late: I must go and tell her she ought to be preparing her fillet. Dearie, DO rest a little.”
 
“You'd much better do that yourself,” Alice called after her, but Mrs. Adams shook her head cheerily, not pausing on her way to the fiery kitchen.
 
Alice continued her useless labours for a time; then carried her bucket to the head of the cellar stairway, where she left it upon the top step; and, closing the door, returned to the “living-room;” Again she changed the positions of the old plush rocking-chairs, moving them into the corners where she thought they might be least noticeable; and while thus engaged she was startled by a loud ringing of the door-bell. For a moment her face was panic-stricken, and she stood staring, then she realized that Russell would not arrive for another hour, at the earliest, and recovering her equipoise, went to the door.
 
Waiting there, in a languid attitude, was a young coloured woman, with a small bundle under her arm and something malleable²¹ in her mouth. “Listen,” she said. “You folks expectin' a coloured lady?”
 
“No,” said Alice. “Especially not at the front door.”
 
“Listen,” the coloured woman said again. “Listen. Say, listen. Ain't they another coloured lady awready here by the day? Listen. Ain't Miz Malena Burns here by the day this evenin'? Say, listen. This the number house she give ME.”
 
“Are you the waitress?” Alice asked, dismally²².
 
“Yes'm, if Malena here.”
 
“Malena is here,” Alice said, and hesitated; but she decided²³ not to send the waitress to the back door; it might be a risk. She let her in. “What's your name?”
 
“Me? I'm name' Gertrude. Miss Gertrude Collamus.”
 
“Did you bring a cap and apron²⁴?”
 
Gertrude took the little bundle from under her arm. “Yes'm. I'm all fix'.”
 
“I've already set the table,” Alice said. “I'll show you what we want done.”
 
She led the way to the dining-room, and, after offering some instruction there, received by Gertrude with languor²⁵ and a slowly moving jaw²⁶, she took her into the kitchen, where the cap and apron were put on. The effect was not fortunate; Gertrude's eyes were noticeably bloodshot, an affliction made more apparent by the white cap; and Alice drew her mother apart, whispering anxiously,
 
“Do you suppose it's too late to get someone else?”
 
“I'm afraid it is,” Mrs. Adams said. “Malena says it was hard enough to get HER! You have to pay them so much that they only work when they feel like it.”
 
“Mama, could you ask her to wear her cap straighter? Every time she moves her head she gets it on one side, and her skirt's too long behind and too short in front—and oh, I've NEVER seen such FEET!” Alice laughed desolately²⁷. “And she MUST quit that terrible chewing!”
 
“Never mind; I'll get to work with her. I'll straighten her out all I can, dearie; don't worry.” Mrs. Adams patted her daughter's shoulder encouragingly. “Now YOU can't do another thing, and if you don't run and begin dressing²⁸ you won't be ready. It'll only take me a minute to dress, myself, and I'll be down long before you will. Run, darling! I'll look after everything.”
 
Alice nodded vaguely²⁹, went up to her room, and, after only a moment with her mirror, brought from her closet the dress of white organdie she had worn the night when she met Russell for the first time. She laid it carefully upon her bed, and began to make ready to put it on. Her mother came in, half an hour later, to “fasten” her.
 
“I'M all dressed,” Mrs. Adams said, briskly. “Of course it doesn't matter. He won't know what the rest of us even look like: How could he? I know I'm an old SIGHT, but all I want is to look respectable. Do I?”
 
“You look like the best woman in the world; that's all!” Alice said, with a little gulp³⁰.
 
Her mother laughed and gave her a final scrutiny³¹. “You might use just a tiny bit more colour, dearie—I'm afraid the excitement's made you a little pale. And you MUST brighten up! There's sort of a look in your eyes as if you'd got in a trance and couldn't get out. You've had it all day. I must run: your father wants me to help him with his studs. Walter hasn't come yet, but I'll look after him; don't worry, And you better HURRY, dearie, if you're going to take any time fixing the flowers on the table.”
 
She departed, while Alice sat at the mirror again, to follow her advice concerning a “tiny bit more colour.” Before she had finished, her father knocked at the door, and, when she responded, came in. He was dressed in the clothes his wife had pressed; but he had lost substantially in weight since they were made for him; no one would have thought that they had been pressed. They hung from him voluminously, seeming to be the clothes of a larger man.
 
“Your mother's gone downstairs,” he said, in a voice of distress³².
 
“One of the buttonholes in my shirt is too large and I can't keep the dang thing fastened. I don't know what to do about it! I only got one other white shirt, and it's kind of ruined: I tried it before I did this one. Do you s'pose you could do anything?”
 
“I'll see,” she said.
 
“My collar's got a frayed³³ edge,” he complained, as she examined his troublesome shirt. “It's a good deal like wearing a saw; but I expect it'll wilt³⁴ down flat pretty soon, and not bother me long. I'm liable to wilt down flat, myself, I expect; I don't know as I remember any such hot night in the last ten or twelve years.” He lifted his head and sniffed³⁵ the flaccid air, which was laden³⁶ with a heavy odour. “My, but that smell is pretty strong!” he said.
 
“Stand still, please, papa,” Alice begged him. “I can't see what's the matter if you move around. How absurd you are about your old glue smell, papa! There isn't a vestige³⁷ of it, of course.”
 
“I didn't mean glue,” he informed her. “I mean cabbage. Is that fashionable now, to have cabbage when there's company for dinner?”
 
“That isn't cabbage, papa. It's Brussels sprouts³⁸.”
 
“Oh, is it? I don't mind it much, because it keeps that glue smell off me, but it's fairly strong. I expect you don't notice it so much because you been in the house with it all along, and got used to it while it was growing.”
 
“It is pretty dreadful,” Alice said. “Are all the windows open downstairs?”
 
“I'll go down and see, if you'll just fix that hole up for me.”
 
“I'm afraid I can't,” she said. “Not unless you take your shirt off and bring it to me. I'll have to sew the hole smaller.”
 
“Oh, well, I'll go ask your mother to——”
 
“No,” said Alice. “She's got everything on her hands. Run and take it off. Hurry, papa; I've got to arrange the flowers on the table before he comes.”
 
He went away, and came back presently, half undressed, bringing the shirt. “There's ONE comfort,” he remarked, pensively³⁹, as she worked. “I've got that collar off—for a while, anyway. I wish I could go to table like this; I could stand it a good deal better. Do you seem to be making any headway with the dang thing?”
 
“I think probably I can——”
 
Downstairs the door-bell rang, and Alice's arms jerked with the shock.
 
“Golly!” her father said. “Did you stick your finger with that fool needle?”
 
She gave him a blank stare. “He's come!”
 
She was not mistaken, for, upon the little veranda⁴⁰, Russell stood facing the closed door at last. However, it remained closed for a considerable time after he rang. Inside the house the warning summons of the bell was immediately followed by another sound, audible to Alice and her father as a crash preceding a series of muffled⁴¹ falls. Then came a distant voice, bitter in complaint.
 
“Oh, Lord!” said Adams. “What's that?”
 
Alice went to the top of the front stairs, and her mother appeared in the hall below.
 
“Mama!”
 
Mrs. Adams looked up. “It's all right,” she said, in a loud whisper. “Gertrude fell down the cellar stairs. Somebody left a bucket there, and——” She was inte............