taken a great liking to Rodney. His manner toward her
had just the blend of deference and breezy unconventionality that
pleased her. So, while Portia would worry through the dinner, for fear
it wouldn't be cooked well enough, or served well enough, not to present
a sorry contrast to the meals her guests were accustomed to, her mother
would sit beaming upon the pair with a contentment as unalloyed as if
Rose were the acknowledged new leader of the great Cause and her husband
her adoring convert, as they had been in her old day-dream.

As far as Rodney went, the dream might have been true, for he showed an
unending interest in the Woman Movement--never tired of drawing from his
mother-in-law the story of her labors and the exposition of her beliefs.
Sometimes he argued with her playfully in order to get her started. More
often, and as far as Portia could see, quite seriously, he professed
himself in full accord with her views.

After this had been going on for about so long, Rose would yawn and
stretch and sit down on the arm of her mother's chair, begin stroking
her hair and offering her all manner of quaint unexpected caresses. And
then, pretty soon, Rodney's attention to the subject would begin to
wander and at last flag altogether and leave him stranded, gazing and
unable to do anything but gaze, at the lovely creature--the still
miraculous creature, who, when he got her home again, would come and sit
on the arm of his chair like that! When this happened, Portia found it
hard to stay in the room.

Until Mrs. Stanton's terrifying illness along in January, these meetings
constituted the whole of the intercourse between the families. Rose had
done her best to carry Portia with her, to some extent at least, into
her new life--to introduce her to her new friends and make her, as far
as might be, one of them. And in this she was seconded very amiably, by
Frederica. But Portia had put down a categorical veto on all these
attempts. She hadn't the inclination nor the energy, she said, and her
mother needed all the time she could spare away from her business. Once,
when Rose pressed the matter, she gave a more genuine reason. Rose's new
friends, she said, would regard her introduction to them solely as a bid
for business. She didn't want them coming around to her place to buy
their wedding presents "in order to help out that poor old maid sister
of Rose Aldrich's." She was getting business enough in legitimate ways.

Someti