and admitted a square of sunshine to the grand apartment, one would
scarcely have guessed that there was such drudgery as housework,
certainly no one would have suspected the elegant Mrs. Cordelia Berry of
being intimately connected with it.

She swept--in those days the breadth of skirts made all feminine
progress more or less of a sweep--across the room and swished gracefully
into a chair. When she spoke she raised her eyebrows, at the end of the
sentence she lowered them and her lashes. She smiled much, and hers was
still a pretty smile. She made attractive little gestures with her
hands.

"I am _so_ glad you dropped in, Mr. Kendrick," she declared. "So very
glad. Of course if we had known when you were coming we might have been
a little better prepared. But there, you will excuse us, I know.
Elizabeth and I--Elizabeth is my daughter, Mr. Kendrick.... But it is
_Captain_ Kendrick, isn't it? Of course, I might have known. You look
the sea--you know what I mean--I can always tell. My dear husband was a
captain. You knew that, of course. And in the old days at my girlhood
home so many, _many_ captains used to come and go. Our old home--my
girlhood home, I mean--was always open. I met my husband there.... Ah
me, those days are not these days! What my dear father would have said
if he could have known.... But we don't know what is in store for us, do
we?... Oh, dear!... It's such charming weather, isn't it, Captain
Kendrick?"

The captain admitted the weather's charm. He had not heard a great deal
of his voluble hostess's chatter. He was there, in a way, on business
and he was wondering how he might, without giving offence, fulfill his
promise to Judge Knowles and see more of the interior of the Fair
Harbor. Of the matron of that institution he had already seen enough to
classify and appraise her in his mind.

Mrs. Berry rambled on and on. At last, out of the tumult of words,
Captain Sears caught a fragment which seemed to him pertinent and
interesting.

"Oh!" he broke in. "So you knew I was--er--hopeful of droppin' in some
time or other?"

"Why, yes. Elizabeth knew. Judge Knowles told her you said you hoped to.
Of course we were delighted.... The poor dear judge! We are _so_ fond of
him, my daughter and I. He is so--so essentially aristocratic. Oh, if
you knew what that means to me, raised as I was among the people I was.
There are times when I sit here in this dreadful place in utter
despair--utter.... Oh--oh, o