A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich

And then, one day in the summer after Laura's graduation, with no previous announcement of their coming, and as nonchalantly as though they were arriving at a large hotel to which they had wired for accommodation, Uncle Harry Wentworth and Aunt Carolyn, a chauffeur and a maid, came into the driveway. Cedartown is used to good-looking cars slipping unconcernedly along the graveled highways which cut through the town. Indeed, Cedartown's residents, themselves, and the owners of the surrounding farm land close their garage doors on as many fine cars as do their city neighbors. But the Wentworths' car, an audaciously long affair that sported more de luxe equipment and trimming per square foot than the most pretentious one in the community, made all the children stop their play to stare, and the old men on the post- office corner temporarily cease whittling out the affairs of the nation.

To say that Eloise was upset when Uncle Harry Wentworth and Aunt Carolyn arrived is merely to make a trite statement such as "dogs bark" or "the world is round." And to look out and witness the descent of Uncle Harry Wentworth from that leviathan of a car, was as devastating to Eloise's poise as to have been an eye witness through the centuries to the entire descent of man. But not for long was Eloise's mind a mental gyroscope. She took hold of the situation with heroic efficacy. By eleven o'clock, Aunt Carolyn was on the davenport with pillows under her shoulders and a cup of hot tea in her plump hand. Uncle Harry was in an overstuffed chair with a foot-stool under his immaculate spats and a glass of iced lemonade in his slim hand. Watson, the chauffeur, was in the garage rubbing down the car as though it were a thoroughbred horse. Annette, the maid, was unpacking. Lunch was well under way and John was being summoned home from the office. Laura was assigned the task of visiting with the heretofore unknown relatives (although she had begged to fix the salad instead) and Trib, was turning the ice-cream freezer under the grape arbor. Whatever faults may have been Eloise's, she was not inefficient.