The good-natured wink which accompanied the words, the hearty
voice and friendly manner, robbed the words of offense. They seemed
rather a humorous gibe directed against Nell. These two got along
excellently well. There was about John Peebles an effect of tender
strength, re-assuring and at the same time illuminating--responsive to
weakness, but adamant to imposition. Even the managerial Nell had not
succeeded in piercing that armored side of him--his 'thus far and no
further.'"

"Aw--you!" said Nell, adoringly.

"I bet Nell's met her boss!" grinned Marvin. "He don't go so fur as to
beat ye, does he, Nell?"

"Smarty!" returned Nell. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners. She had
met her match, and she knew it and gloried in it. But she didn't want
any sass from the family.

She had none. They submitted without demur. The dish-pan sunned in the
old place. The towels dried along a line of her own stretching. "John
and me don't mean to make you any work," she assured them. They made no
work. It seemed there had never been so much leisure.

"Myry," inquired Nell, "where's that other glass that goes with George's
wife's lemonade-set?"

"Oh, it must be 'round som'ers," Myra returned vaguely.

"Round som'ers! Why ain't they all together?" Nell prodded in further
search.

"Where's my pink gilt cup and saucer Aunt Em gimme one Christmas?"

"Ain't it there?" ventured Myra, with a cowardly shrinking from
confession, not so much on her own account as for old Mrs. Bray. There
was the majolica pickle-dish, the gilt, beflowered lemonade-glass, Abbie
Carter's cracker-jar, certain of the fragile souvenir pin-trays stacked
in a corner of the shelf.

"Here's Marvin's blue one. It's funny where them things can be. I always
kept them here together, on this shelf."

"They're som'ers," Myra repeated vaguely.

Old Mrs. Bray had sat throughout this conversation, making buttonholes
in a new gray percale. Once, when Nell was back at the sink, she reached
out a wavering, fat old arm, and gave Myra's apron-string a tug, as a
bad child pulls a cat's tail in a sort of impish humor. Her eyes, blue
and shining as a child's saucer, looked very wise. A little laugh
clucked in her throat.

"Mother--you feel chilly? You want to keep out of drafts," cautioned
Nellie from the sink.

"Never felt more chipper!" averred old Mrs. Bray.

She had not spent an afternoon in her room since Nell's arrival. To-day,
however, after dinner, she withdrew