ook more
normal. She dressed more carefully and spent more time in arranging
her hair. After all, she was very young, and abnormal instincts may
be quieted with a mere sop at the first.

When Horace reached home that day of the drive he found that Rose had
returned. Sylvia said that she had been at home half an hour.

"She went to Alford," she said, "and I'm afraid she's all tired out.
She came home looking as white as a sheet. She said she didn't want
any dinner, but finally said she would come down."

At the dinner-table Rose was very silent. She did not look at Horace
at all. She ate almost nothing. After dinner she persisted in
assisting Sylvia in clearing away the table and washing the dishes.
Rose took a childish delight in polishing the china with her
dish-towel. New England traits seemed to awake within her in this New
England home. Sylvia was using the willow ware now, Rose was so
pleased with it. The Calkin's soap ware was packed away on the top
shelf of the pantry.

"It is perfectly impossible, Aunt Sylvia," Rose had declared, and
Sylvia had listened. She listened with much more docility than at
first to the decrees of sophistication.

"The painting ain't nearly as natural," she had said, feebly,
regarding the moss rosebuds on a Calkin's soap plate with fluctuating
admiration which caused her pain by its fluctuations.

"Oh, but, Aunt Sylvia, to think of comparing for one minute ware like
that with this perfectly wonderful old willow ware!" Rose had said.

"Well, have your own way," said Sylvia, with a sigh. "Maybe I can get
used to everything all blue, when it ain't blue, after awhile. I know
you have been around more than I have, and you ought to know."

So the gold-and-white ware which had belonged to Sylvia's mother
decked the breakfast-table and the willow ware did duty for the rest
of the time. "I think it is very much better that you have no maid,"
Rose said. "I simply would not trust a maid to care for china like
this."

Rose took care of her room now, and very daintily. "She'll be real
capable after awhile," Sylvia told Henry.

"I didn't know as she'd be contented to stay at all, we live so
different from the way she's been used to," said Henry.

"It's the way her mother was brought up, and the way she lived, and
what's in the blood will work out," said Sylvia. "Then, too, I guess
she didn't care any too much about those folks she lived with. For my
part, I think it's the queerest thing