rcome by that openness to conviction from
unexpected sources which gave her mother one of her great anxieties for
her. "Well, honestly, do you know," she said unexpectedly, "there is a
lot in that. I've thought ever so many times in the last two weeks that
if Father would let me wait on the table, for instance, I could get on
ever so much easier."

"And I'll just warrant," the man went on, "that I've had more time to
myself lately than you have, for all I've my living to earn as well as
the housework."

"My goodness!" cried Lydia, repudiating the comparison. "That needn't be
saying much for you, for I haven't had a minute--not even to sit with
Mother as much as I ought."

"What did you have to do that kept you from that?"

"Oh, you're no housekeeper, that's evident, or you wouldn't ask. A man
_never_ has any idea about the amount of work there is to do in a house.
Why, set the table, and sweep the parlors, and change the flower vases,
and dust, and pick up, and dust--I don't know what makes things get so
dusty. We've got an awfully big house, you know, and of course I want to
keep everything as nice as if Mother were up. Everybody expects me to do
that!"

"I had a great-aunt," began Rankin with willful irrelevancy, "a very
wonderful old woman who taught me most of what I value. She was
considered cracked, so maybe that's why I am a freak, and she was as
wise as wise! And she had stories that fitted every occasion. One that
she used to tell was about a farmer cousin of hers, who had a team of
spirited young horses that he was breaking. Everybody warned him that if
they ever ran away they'd be spoiled for life, and he got carefuller and
carefuller of them. One day he and his father were haying beside a
river, and the father, who couldn't swim a stroke, fell in. The horses
were frightened by the splash and began to prance, and the son ran to
their heads, beside himself with fear. The old man came to the top and
screamed, 'Help! help!' and the son answered, fairly jumping up and down
in his anguish of mind over his poor old father's fate, 'Oh, help,
somebody! Somebody come and help! I can't leave my horses!'"

He stopped. Lydia slid helplessly into the naive question, "Well, did
his father drown?" before the meaning of the little parable struck her.
She began to laugh, with her gay, sweet inability to resent a joke made
at her own expense. "Don't you think you are a good hand at
sermon-making!" she mocked him. "It's