had
come back to her face.

"Then if that is the case, it will be all the more change for me to do
something," she said pleasantly. "I want to do them, Kate. It will be
a pleasure to me."

"Pleasure!"

Mrs. Rowland's clear laugh rang through the kitchen at the scorn
expressed in the one word.

"And is it so bad as that?" she demanded merrily.

"Worse!" snapped Kate. "I simply loathe dishes!" But a shamed smile
came to her lips, and she got the pans and water, making no further
objection.

"I like pretty dishes," observed Mrs. Howland, after a time, breaking a
long silence. "There's a certain satisfaction in restoring them to
their shelves in all their dainty, polished beauty."

"I should like them just as well if they always stayed there, and did
n't come down to get all crumbs and grease in the sink," returned the
other tartly.

"Oh, of course," agreed Mrs. Howland, with a smile; "but, as long as
they don't, why, we might as well take what satisfaction there is in
putting them in shape again."

"Don't see it--the satisfaction," retorted Kate, and her aunt dropped
the subject where it was.

The dishes finished and the kitchen put to rights, the two women
started for the chambers and the bed-making. Kate's protests were
airily waved aside by the energetic little woman who promptly went to
pillow-beating and mattress-turning.

"How fresh and sweet the air smells!" cried Mrs. Howland, sniffing at
the open window.

"Lilacs," explained Kate concisely.

"Hm-m--lovely!"

"Think so? I don't care for the odor myself," rejoined Kate.

The other shot a quick look from under lowered lids. Kate's face
expressed mere indifference. The girl evidently had not meant to be
rude.

"You don't like them?" cried Mrs. Howland. "Oh, I do! My dear, you
don't half appreciate what it is to have such air to breathe. Only
think, if you were shut up in a brick house on a narrow street as I am!"

"Think!" retorted Kate, with sudden heat. "I 'd like to do something
besides 'think'! I 'd like to try it!"

"You mean you'd like to leave here?--to go to the city?"

"I do, certainly. Aunt Ellen, I'm simply sick of chicken-feeding and
meal-getting. Why, if it was n't for keeping house for father I 'd
have been off to New York or Boston years ago!"

"But your home--your friends!"

"Commonplace--uninteresting!" declared Kate, disposing of both with a
wave of her two hands. "The one means endless sweeping and bak