ey'd take little
sketches like a couple of those Nancy showed you--though they aren't
quite smart-alecky enough for 'Mode'--" "Grandfather, Grandfather! How
old would you be if you were as old as Methusaleh? Are you older than he
is? _Grandfather!_"

Entrance and exit of a worried Sheba with the empty dish of blueberries,
marred only by Jane Ellen's sudden cries of "Stop thief!"

Mrs. Crowe tried to think a little ahead. Tomorrow. Ice. Butter.
Laundry. Oliver's breakfast early again. Louise--poor Louise--two years
and a half since Clifford Lychgate died. How curious life was; how
curious and careless and inconsecutive. The thought of how much she
hoped Oliver's novel would succeed and the question as to whether the
Thebes grocer who delivered by motor-truck would be cheaper than the
similar Melgrove bandit in the long run mixed uneasily in her mind.

Rosalind had seemed droopy that morning--more green crab-apples
probably. Aunt Elsie's gout. Oliver's marriage--she had been so relieved
about Nancy ever since she had met her, though it had been hard to
reconcile domestic virtues with Nancy's bobbed hair. She would make
Oliver happy, though, and that was the main thing. She was really
sweet--a sweet girl. Long engagements. Too bad, too bad. Something
_must_ be done about the stair carpet, the children were tearing it to
pieces. "Ice tea! Ice tea!"

"No, Jane Ellen."

"Yash."

"No, darling."

"Peesh yash?"

"No. Now be a good little girl and run out and play quietly, not right
in the middle of the broiling sun."

"And so Lizzie said, 'Very well, but if I do take that medicine my death
will be wholly on your responsibility!'" with a sense of climax.

"But I really would like to, Mrs. Severance, if you can ever spare the
time."

Ted and Louise's friend seemed to be getting along very well. That was
nice--so often Oliver's friends and Louise's didn't. It seemed odd that
Mrs. Severance should be working on "Mode"--surely a girl of her obvious
looks and intelligence left with no children to support--some nice
man--A lady, too, by her voice, though there was a trifle of something--

She only hoped Mrs. Severance didn't think them all too crowded
and noisy. It was a little hard on the three children to have such
an--intimate--home when they brought friends.

"I think we'd better have coffee out on the porch, don't you?" That
meant argument with Sheba later but an hour's cool and talk without
having to shout acros