ut? All I've done is paid for, and plenty more to settle
for all I propose to do."

Mrs. Comstock glanced around with satisfaction.

"I may get homesick as a pup before spring," she said, "but if I do I
can go back. If I don't, I'll sell some timber and put a few oil wells
where they don't show much. I can have land enough cleared for a few
fields and put a tenant on our farm, and we will buy this and settle
here. It's for sale."

"You don't look it, but you've surely gone mad!"

"Just the reverse, my girl," said Mrs. Comstock, "I've gone sane. If you
are going to undertake this work, you must be convenient to it. And your
mother should be where she can see that you are properly dressed, fed,
and cared for. This is our--let me think--reception-room. How do you
like it? This door leads to your workroom and study. I didn't do much
there because I wasn't sure of my way. But I knew you would want a rug,
curtains, table, shelves for books, and a case for your specimens, so I
had a carpenter shelve and enclose that end of it. Looks pretty neat to
me. The dining-room and kitchen are back, one of the cows in the barn,
and some chickens in the coop. I understand that none of the other
girls' mothers milk a cow, so a neighbour boy will tend to ours for a
third of the milk. There are three bedrooms, and a bath upstairs. Go
take one, put on some fresh clothes, and come to supper. You can find
your room because your things are in it."

Elnora kissed her mother over and over, and hurried upstairs. She
identified her room by the dressing-case. There were a pretty rug, and
curtains, white iron bed, plain and rocking chairs to match her case,
a shirtwaist chest, and the big closet was filled with her old clothing
and several new dresses. She found the bathroom, bathed, dressed in
fresh linen and went down to a supper that was an evidence of Mrs.
Comstock's highest art in cooking. Elnora was so hungry she ate her
first real meal in two weeks. But the bites went down slowly because she
forgot about them in watching her mother.

"How on earth did you do it?" she asked at last. "I always thought you
were naturally brown as a nut."

"Oh, that was tan and sunburn!" explained Mrs. Comstock. "I always knew
I was white underneath it. I hated to shade my face because I hadn't
anything but a sunbonnet, and I couldn't stand for it to touch my ears,
so I went bareheaded and took all the colour I accumulated. But when
I began to think of movi