“Yes,” she said, “you stay with me, Mis’ Bixby, an’ we’ll let Julie go out to the porch an’ entertain the men-folks for a spell. She needs a rest an’ cool-off ’fore we go to the show.” “Well, you picked a poor hand to help you,” Elizabeth said tartly. “If there’s one thing I do despise, it’s dirty dishes. Here, Tim!” she cried to her husband; and then, realizing that if she called him back that would leave Brother Seabrook in a tête-à-tête with Julie, she said, “Oh, well, go on then”; for she suspected in the minister an interest in Julie which she resented. Her manœuvres were all so obvious and usually so futile, that Julie, informed by that wider understanding, felt a sudden pity for her. “I’ll stay and help you with the dishes,” she offered. But this Aunt Sadie would not allow. “No, you go on now, Julie; you’ve done your bit. You go out on the porch an’ cool off,” she ordered. While the table was being cleared, Julie and the two men sat together in the dusk of the side porch. Julie did not talk much. She did not want to. She was slightly tired, and was content to listen to the other two. She liked to hear Mr. Bixby. It was amazing how much he found to say when the stifling incubus of Elizabeth was withdrawn. For a time the talk was still about the war, but presently it drifted away to other topics, and as that was left behind, Julie was conscious that there appeared in his voice a note of relief and picking up of interest. He talked more quickly and easily, describing the matter of printing. His father, it appeared, had been a printer before him. He had learned the trade from him. He said, “I like it.” He said that over frequently in variations. “Somehow I like it. I like a good bit of printing,” and “I liked it from the first, when I was just a kid.” He made what he said interesting: so much so that Brother Seabrook was glad to listen and said, “Well, well, is that so?” frequently. Neither of the men spoke especially to Julie, yet she knew that they were both aware of her presence, and stimulated by it. She liked sitting there in the dusk, making the background for their conversation. She had a curious sense that something out of herself flowed forth and made a successful medium for their talk. She knew that if she had not been there Mr. Bixby could never have spoken so well and so easily about his trade. Without the touch of her sympathy, together with the mantle of the dusk, he could never have let so much of himself appear; he would not have been interesting, and Brother Seabrook would have seized the conversation and borne it away in his own large declamatory tones.