The change occurred from the moment of her return home. So changed
indeed was she that her rough but faithful housekeeper, dull of
perception to all those things outside the narrow focus of her life in
domestic service, caught a faint glimpse of it without anything
approaching a proper understanding. She realized an added energy,
which seriously affected her own methods of performing her duties and
caused her to make a mental note that her young mistress was assuming
"airs" which did not fit in with her inexperience of those things
amidst which she, the farm-wife, had floundered all her life. She
heard her moving about the house, her joy and hope finding outlet in
song such as had never echoed through the place before. And promptly
she set this new phase down to the result of her associations with the
young "scallawag" Buck. She noted, too, an added care in her toilet,
and this inspired the portentous belief that she was "a-carryin' on"
with the same individual. But when it came to a general "turning-out"
of the living-rooms of the house, a matter which added an immense
amount of effort to her own daily duties, her protest found immediate
vent in no uncertain terms.

It came while the midday dinner was in preparation. It rose to
boiling-point amidst the steam from her cooking pots. Finally it
bubbled over, much as might one of her own kettles.

Joan was standing in the kitchen giving her orders preparatory to
departing to the camp, whither she was going to mail her letter to her
aunt at Beasley's store.

"You see," she was saying, "I'll have to make some changes in the
house. I'm expecting my aunt from St. Ellis to come and stay with me.
She won't be able to do with the things which have been sufficient for
me. She will have my room. I shall buy new furniture for it. I shall
get Beasley to order it for me from Leeson Butte. Then I shall use the
little room next yours. And while we're making these changes we'll
have a general housecleaning. You might begin this afternoon on the
room I am going to move into."

The old woman turned with a scarlet face. It may have been the result
of the heat of cooking. Then again it may have had other causes.

"An' when, may I ast, do I make bricks?" she inquired with ponderous
sarcasm.

Joan stood abashed for a moment. So unexpected was the retort, so much
was it at variance with her own mood that she had no answer ready, and
the other was left with the field to herself.

"No