best heart in
the world, and absolutely honest and unaffected. My experience is that
honest, unaffected people do not change in the long run."

"What did she look like, Mother?" asked Molly.

"Well, when I come to think of it, she looked a little like you. She is
only my second cousin, once removed, not such very close kin; but this
red hair of yours comes cropping out in every generation or so in my
family and the similar coloring makes one fancy a likeness even if there
is none; but Sally had your eyes and your chin. She took life much more
lightly than my Molly does, saw a jest where none was intended and
sometimes cracked a joke when seriousness would have been in better
taste. I have not seen her for many years and she stopped corresponding
with all of us; not that there was any disagreement, but letter-writing
simply died a natural death, as time went on. I am greatly interested in
seeing her."

Mrs. Brown also decided to let Mr. Kinsella approach the O'Briens in
regard to having Elise live with her. She was very well aware of Mrs.
Huntington's nature and felt that that lady would be fully capable of
treating her as though Elise were necessary to the housekeeping scheme
to help out the financial end; and Mrs. Brown was determined to have no
one with her as a boarder, but to run the _menage_ on a co-operative
principle, letting all of them share the expense.

Mrs. Huntington and Elise had stopped in Brussels for a visit with some
friends and Mr. Kinsella and Pierce were still in Antwerp getting their
fill of the pictures to be seen there. They were uncertain how long it
would take them to grow tired of the interesting Belgian city and could
not tell just when their friends might expect them in Paris.

When the three renegades returned from their walk in the Luxembourg
Gardens, they hoped to reach their rooms without being seen by Mrs.
Pace, but that lady's motto was "Eternal Vigilance," and no one went out
of her house or came in unobserved. She met them as they stepped off the
elevator on the fifth floor and gently but firmly admonished them for
their disobedience. Molly noticed her mother's heightening color and her
quivering nostrils and remembered with a smile what Aunt Mary, their old
cook, always said to them when they were children: "Ole Miss is long
suffrin' an' slow to anger but when her nose gits to wuckin', you
chillun ought to learn that she done had 'nuf and you had better make
yo'sefs scurse." Pe