"You know I didn't have to go shopping for all my belongings; you have no idea what quantities of things were given me." "Oh, I can imagine, just by looking around. Wedding presents are so fascinating." "But still," continued Brenda, "there were certain things I had to buy, chairs and tables, for example, and it was hard sometimes to decide between Mission styles and mahogany, and whether the bedstead should be brass or painted iron for the smaller rooms; and then the kitchen furnishings were puzzling. Of course I'm not perfectly satisfied with everything, but, on the whole, we must be contented until we have a house." "Oh, how can you speak of a house! This is ever so much better. It's the prettiest flat I ever saw; don't you just love to be up here in the top? You can see over everything, even to the river, and down the avenue and up the avenue; it's more like Paris than anything I've seen since I was in Europe." "I do enjoy the view," replied Brenda. "I should hate to be shut in in a narrow street. I don't like it here quite as well as in our old house on the water side of Beacon street, where my room had such a broad outlook." "You must have hated to leave home." "In a way I did, but though mamma tried to persuade me to stay with her this winter, I felt that I just must begin to keep house myself." "You ought to be very happy that you are so near your mother." Martine spoke wistfully; although she wouldn't have admitted it for the world, she was beginning to be homesick. Chicago seemed altogether too far away. "It is pleasant," replied Brenda, "to be able to run in and out there when I please. Besides, my sister and her children are there, and I am awfully fond of the little girls." "Naturally. But that reminds me, though there isn't any real connection with what we've been talking about, you haven't shown me your kitchen. Can't we go out there now?" "Why, yes,"--then Brenda's face clouded,--"if the cook--" "Oh, Brenda Weston! You are afraid of the cook." Brenda colored. "Not afraid; only you know cooks are so queer, and of course dinners have to be just so, and she's apt to spoil things if anything annoys her. But this is her afternoon out." "Then we can go and look through everything," and Martine thereupon followed Brenda through the long narrow hall to the little kitchen at the very end of the suite. "You see," explained Brenda, as they entered the cook's domain, "though this is not an old house, the kitchen needed some improvements that I learned are necessary when I lived at the Mansion. It's astonishing how many things men forget when they build houses. Now, out here, there was an old-fashioned closed-in wooden sink, but I had it replaced with this open one at our expense, and this tiling put all around the walls, and here, this was my idea and this," and one by one she pointed out many little things that might have escaped Martine's notice.