ion.

"We never get roast beef like this I'm sure," Mrs. Ree admitted, "we
can't get it small enough for our family."

"And a little roast is always spoiled in the cooking. Yes this is far
better than we used to have," agreed her hostess.

Mrs. Ree enjoyed every mouthful of her meal. The soup was hot. The salad
was crisp and the ice cream hard. There was sponge cake, thick, light,
with sugar freckles on the dark crust. The coffee was perfect and almost
burned the tongue.

"I don't understand about the heat and cold," she said; and they showed
her the asbestos-lined compartments and perfectly fitting places for
each dish and plate. Everything went back out of sight; small leavings
in a special drawer, knives and forks held firmly by rubber fittings,
nothing that shook or rattled. And the case was set back by the door
where the man called for it at eight o'clock.

"She doesn't furnish table linen?"

"No, there are Japanese napkins at the top here. We like our own
napkins, and we didn't use a cloth, anyway."

"And how about silver?"

"We put ours away. This plated ware they furnish is perfectly good. We
could use ours of course if we wanted to wash it. Some do that and some
have their own case marked, and their own silver in it, but it's a good
deal of risk, I think, though they are extremely careful."

Mrs. Ree experienced peculiarly mixed feelings. As far as food went, she
had never eaten a better dinner. But her sense of Domestic Aesthetics
was jarred.

"It certainly tastes good," she said. "Delicious, in fact. I am
extremely obliged to you, Mrs. Porne, I'd no idea it could be sent so
far and be so good. And only five dollars a week, you say?"

"For each person, yes."

"I don't see how she does it. All those cases and dishes, and the
delivery wagon!"

That was the universal comment in Orchardina circles as the months
passed and Union House continued in existence--"I don't see how she does
it!"

CHAPTER XII. LIKE A BANYAN TREE

The Earth-Plants spring up from beneath,
The Air-Plants swing down from above,
But the Banyan trees grow
Both above and below,
And one makes a prosperous grove.

In the fleeting opportunities offered by the Caffeteria, and in longer
moments, rather neatly planned for, with some remnants of an earlier
ingenuity, Mr. Thaddler contrived to become acquainted with Mrs. Bell.
Diantha never quite liked him, but he won her mother's heart by f