It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not be inconsistent, with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up delightfully in the act. But no smile curved the daughter's stern young lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room (the older woman stopped to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor). On the way they paused at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, so cool, so spacious, all soft grays and blues. Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing forefinger at a large, dark object in a corner near a window. "That's the old walnut desk!" she exclaimed. "I know it." The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. "Oh, mother dear! That's the situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of doubt there's an eradicable streak of black walnut in your gray-enamel make-up." "Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish! I never expected to meet it out of a book. And, fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I didn't know there was any situation." "I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of mind." Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter." She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on. Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a bath, won't you, dear?" "Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?" "With onions," said Mrs. Brewster, firmly. Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splashing in a cool tub, heard the voice of Miz' Merz high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz' Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter flannels!" "Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair, and floor impartially. Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of the foot down at each step instead of heel and ball. It gave him a queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!" His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat, went darkly red. He dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was pressed against his dear prickly one. So they stood for a long minute--close. "Need a shave, dad." "Well, gosh, how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off. "What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?" "Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're decorating my studio--you know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was lonesome for you."