"You drove from New York?" Catherine lifted Letty into her arms, and enveloped her in the sweater. "I didn't know you could get away." "Labor Day," said Bill. He was gazing at the children, his eyes half shut behind his thick glasses. "If you can't put us up, Catherine, we'll hunt for a boarding house. But we wanted to see you." "Of course I can. Do you think I'd let you escape, when I'm starving for human beings?" "With all of these?" Bill nodded at the group. "They are animals, not human beings, aren't you, Marian?" Dr. Henrietta laughed at Marian's distressed face. "Your woman in the kitchen"--she dropped her voice mysteriously--"thought we were bandits and didn't ask us in." * * * * * Amelia was pleased to meet them, when Catherine ushered them properly into the house. "Don't that beat all!" she said, loudly, as they followed Spencer to the guest room. "I thought they was peddlars. Drove all the ways from New York! Don't that beat all!" She made flurried rushes about the kitchen, pulling open the cupboard doors. "Now don't you fuss, Mis' Hammond. If baked beans is good enough I can make out a meal, I guess. She's a doctor, eh?" After a fleet half hour Catherine had Letty bathed, fed, and tucked into her cot. She had slipped out of her knickerbockers and smock into a soft green dress. No time to brush her hair; she adjusted a pin in the heavy brown knot, and glanced at her reflection. Letty's voice rose in deep inarticulate demand from the porch. Catherine stepped to the door. Bill stood outside. "She wants you to say good night to Ducky Wobbles." Catherine smiled at him; she had, at times, a lovely smile, unreserved in its warm friendliness. She was fond of Bill; his dark silence piqued her, but she felt that it was a silence of steady, quiet wisdom, which couldn't break itself up into tiny words. "Can't I say good night to Letty instead?" "No! Nice Ducky!" Letty wobbled her duck at him. "Goo'ni' to my Ducky!" "Well, then, good night to Ducky and to his Letty." Letty dropped back into her pillow, content. "Now you go to sleep, old lady." Catherine closed the door, and stopped for a moment to supervise Marian's preparations. Spencer had filled the wood basket with shining pink-white birch logs. Catherine drew out the crane with the kettle and laid a fire on the andirons in the huge old fireplace. Dr. Henrietta came out, dangling her eyeglasses on a long black ribbon over her sturdy white finger. "This is a charming old place, Catherine. You all look well, too. A summer in the country certainly sets the children up." Catherine glanced at her, as the flame crept around the logs. "You ought to try it, if you want to know what it does to you--" she paused. "Moss in every cranny of your brain--" Bill was coming in. "After supper I'll tell you!" * * * * *