There is one thing you must always remember if you wish to stand in Madam's good graces. You must never sit down on the brocade-covered settee with the beautiful rose wreath hand-carved on its gracefully curving walnut back. Some day when she gets to know you very well she will tell you of the wonderful love stories that were enacted on that settee. She will begin away, away back with some great-great-grandmother or some great-grand-aunt and come gradually down to her own time and history; and as she tells of the young years of her life, her eyes will go dreaming off into the past and she will forget you entirely. And you will slip away from that great room and leave her sitting there, regal and silver haired, her face mellow and sweet with the golden memories of far, by-gone days. You can wander in this happy, aimless fashion all about Green Valley, go in and out its deep-rooted old homes, stroll through its tree-guarded old streets, and at every turn taste romance and adventure, revel in beauty of some sort. Even the old, red-brick creamery, ugly in itself, is a thing of beauty when seen against a sunset sky. The people who pass you on the streets all smile and nod, stranger though you are. And if you happen to be at the little undistinguished depot just as the 6:10 pulls in, you will see pouring joyously out of it the Green Valley men, those who every day go to the great city to work and every night come thankfully back to their little home town to live. They hurry along in twos and threes, waving newspaper and hand greetings to the home folks and the store proprietors who stand in their doorways to watch them go by. There is a fragrant smell of supper in the air and a slight feel of coming rain. Here and there a mother calls a belated child. Doors slam, dogs bark and a baby frets loudly somewhere. In somebody's chicken coop a frightened, dozing hen gargles its throat and then goes to sleep again. The frogs along Silver Creek and in Wimple's pond are going full blast, and in her fragrant herb garden stands Grandma Wentworth. She is looking at the gold-smudged western sky and watching the sweet, spring night sift softly down on Green Valley. She stands there a long time sensing the great tide of new life that is flushing the world into a new, tingling beauty. She sees the lacy loveliness of the birches, the budding green glory of her garden. Then she smiles as she tells herself: "It won't be long now till the lilacs bloom again. Nanny will be here soon now. And who knows! Cynthia's boy may come back to live in his mother's old home." CHAPTER III THE LAST OF THE CHURCHILLS Even in beautiful Los Angeles days can be rainy and full of gnawing cold and gloom.