“I don’t think we’re ever going to be ready for Christmas,” Pansy said, as she carefully fitted a serviette into its silver ring and laid it on the bleached white tablecloth. “Usually Mrs. Prestwick has all the decorations up by now.”

Gertie gave a last critical glance around the dining room to make sure everything was in order. Although there were only a handful of guests in the hotel until the Christmas rush, every table in the dining room had to be laid as if expecting a visitor to be seated there.

Since every meal was laid differently, that meant clearing off the unused cutlery and china and replacing it with still more unused utensils, glasses, and dishes, all of which had to be washed and put away before being brought out again the next day.

Gertie had never seen the purpose of all that. If nobody was going to sit at the table, why go to all the trouble of putting clean dishes and silverware on it every day? Bloody stupid, it was. All that work for nothing. She had enough to do without having to blinking wash clean dishes and knives and forks.

Of course, when she’d told Chubby that, using her usual colorful expressions, all she’d got in answer was a box around the ears. Fat lot of good it did to complain.

“Are you all right?”

Pansy’s anxious voice jerked her out of her thoughts. “Yea, I’m all right. Just thinking how much work we’ve got ahead of us with Christmas and all.”

“Still missing Dan?” Pansy straightened a pair of silver condiment shakers and stood back to gauge her work.

“Nah.” Gertie snorted. “I don’t ever think of him anymore. After he went off to London I put him out of my mind.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. She’d missed the fun-loving, impulsive young man dreadfully the first few months, and the pain only gradually faded away until she could now say she didn’t miss him and really mean it.