at the first sound of the automobile. "It isn't any
of them folks from the city that were out to the funeral, for there
wasn't a car like that there, I'm certain! I mean to run over and
borrow a spoonful of soda pretty soon, just to find out. It couldn't
be any of Tom's folks from out West, for they couldn't come all that
way in a car. It must be some of her father's relations from over in
Maryland, though I never heard they were that well off. A chauffeur in
livery! The idea of all that style coming to see Julia Cloud!"

"No, we didn't come on the train," explained Leslie eagerly. "We came
in Allison's new car. Mr. Luddington--that's our guardian--was coming
East, and he said we might come with him. We've been dying to come for
ages. And he'd been promising Allison he might get this new car; so we
stopped in the city and bought it, and Allison drove it down. Of
course Mr. Luddington made his man come along. He wouldn't let us come
alone. He's gone up to Boston for three days; and, when he comes back,
he's coming down here to see you."

Leslie was talking as fast as an express train, and Julia Cloud stood
and admired her in wonder.

She was slim and delicately pretty as ever, with the same mop of
goldy-brown curls, done up in a knot now and making her look
quaintly like the little five-year-old on a hot day with her curls
twisted on the top of her head for comfort. She wore a simple little
straight frock of some dark silk stuff, with beaded pockets and
marvellous pleats and belts and straps in unexpected places, such
as one sees in fashion-books, but not on young girls in the town of
Sterling; and her hat was a queer little cap with a knob of bright
beads, wonderfully becoming, but quite different from anything that
Julia Cloud had ever seen before. Her movements were darting and
quick like a humming-bird's; and she wore long soft suede gloves and
tiny high suede boots. The older woman watched her, fascinated.

"And you're sure we're not being an inconvenience, dropping down upon
you in this unexpected way?" asked Allison in a quite grown-up man's
voice, and looking so tall and handsome and responsible that Julia
Cloud wanted to take him in her arms and hug him to make sure he was
the same little boy she used to tuck into bed at night.

"So soon after Grandma's death, too," put in Allison. "We didn't know,
of course, till we got about a mile from Sterling and stopped to ask
the way to the house, and a man told us a