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have any engagements coming up till the dance at the club. Why?”
    “I’ve got a date tonight,” I said, “but I felt funny about going out and leaving Julia on her first night here. If you’re going to be home, you can entertain her.”
    “Now, wait a minute,” Pete said. He laid down his spoon with such force that it clattered against the side of the bowl. “Do you mean you’re planning to stick me with making conversation with some homely female cousin all evening while you’re sliding out from under? Where are you going anyway?”
    “To a show, and we’re taking Bobby.”
    “Well, take her too, then.”
    “I offered,” I said self-righteously, “and she doesn’t want to go.” I knew what was behind his reaction. Pete pretended he didn’t like girls, but in actuality he was painfully shy with them.
    “You might as well get to know her,” I told him. “After all, she’s going to be living here.”
    Before he could object any further I went on through the swinging door into the den and turned on the television. Pretty soon Bobby came in, smelling like old tennis shoes and chewing gum, which was the way Bobby usually smelled on summer afternoons, and lay down on the floor, and we watched the Lucy show together until Mother got home from the store and it was time to help her fix dinner.
    It seemed funny that night to see the table set with six places instead of five and to know that it would be that way every night from then on. Bobby got to the table first, as usual, and was sent back to wash the backsides of his hands. Peter went to bring in an extra chair from the kitchen, and I went upstairs to get Julia.
    I rapped and said, “Dinner!” and Julia answered, “All right. I’m coming,” so I went back down to the others and we waited.
    We waited and waited, and finally Mother put the chops back into the oven to keep them warm and Dad said, “Are you sure she heard you?”
    “She answered,” I said. “She said she was coming.”
    “Girls,” Bobby grumbled. “They’re never on time for anything.”
    “At least, they wash the backs of their hands,” I told him.
    “So, you don’t eat with the backs of your hands, do you?” Bobby countered.
    “It’s the backs that the other people at the table have to look at,” Dad said, and they went into the usual routine which we all heard at least twice a week. When it was over Julia was still not down and the chops were beginning to smell as though they were burning.
    “Maybe I’d better go up and check on her,” Mother began. “She could have dozed back off—”
    And then she was there, standing in the doorway. Julia.
    I knew then why it had taken her so long. Julia had dressed for dinner. The dress she had chosen was pale yellow with a long, swirling skirt and bell sleeves. It was a lovely dress, a strangely familiar dress. I had an immediate feeling that I had seen one like it recently on someone else, someone it had looked really good on.
    But it wasn’t good on Julia. It seemed to hang wrong with the shoulder seams not quite in the right place so that her wrists extended too far below the end of the sleeves. It was tight across the chest, too, and the color was wrong. Julia was too sallow to wear that pale, butterfly shade of yellow.
    But Mother got up and hugged her and said, “Honey, you look lovely,” and Dad smiled and said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a girl at this table wearing anything but blue jeans. Have you met your cousins, Pete and Bobby?”
    The boys grunted greetings, and Julia said something appropriate. Then everybody sat down and Mother went out and got the chops and we had dinner.
    What did we talk about at that dinner? I’m trying to remember. Just ordinary things, I guess. Mother had found a letter waiting for her from a magazine that wanted a picture of young people playing on sleds. “Didn’t we take some last winter?” she mused: “I’ll have to check my negative file.