Spencer's grin faded at the tone of her voice, and her flare of weary temper subsided as she watched them scurry after the fruit. They stowed the oranges into pockets, and corners of the basket. Finally they were home again. Flora's loud "Glory, glory, halleleuia," swept down the hall as they opened the door, and Letty's accompaniment. "She's found my drum!" Spencer fled to the kitchen, and a wail followed as Letty was reft of her instrument. Catherine pressed her lips firmly together as she hung her dripping coat on the rack. "Steady," she said. "They are as tired as I am." Then she thought: that's the great trouble with being a mother. You never get away for a chance to sulk and indulge your bad temper. Charles came in, with his blandest air of preoccupation. Flora had prepared the dinner, and then gone home when her gentleman friend called for her, to cook her own evening meal, leaving Catherine to broil the steak and set things on the table. Since Letty had slept so long, she was permitted to sit in her high-chair during dinner, where she conducted an insuppressible and very little intelligible conversation. "She certainly needs training," declared Charles. "She isn't often on hand for dinner," said Catherine, wearily. Spencer and Marian cleared away the table, while Catherine bathed Letty, deafening herself to the crash which came from the kitchen. What had Marian dropped this time? Then she heard them, chattering away to their father, with the occasional interruption of Charles's deep laugh. She hung away Letty's towels and garments, and let the water run for Marian's bath. Wasn't that Kelly person coming in? Would she, Catherine wondered, give the children their baths? Could she let anyone else do that? Those slender, rounded bodies, firm, ineffably young and sweet, changing so subtly from the soft baby curves of Letty into young strength. Oh, at every second there waited for her some coil of sentiment, of devotion, to hold her there, solid, unmoving, in the round of the past few years. She was too tired to-night to think straight. She called Marian from the door, and was answered by a demonstrating wail. "Not yet, Muvver. I have to see my Daddy." But at last both she and Spencer were bathed and in bed. As Catherine turned out Spencer's light, she heard the doorbell. "Who is it, Moth-er?" Spencer's head came up from his pillow. "I don't know, son. But you go to sleep." "Mother--" His voice was low, half ashamed. "Mother, what makes me ache in here?" "Where?" Catherine hung over his bed. He drew her hand to his chest. "When I think about my porch--an' everything." "You better think about something here, Spencer." Catherine's words were tender. "Something you like here. That will cure your ache." "But I can't think up anything to think about! You tell me something nice----" "'F you talk to Spencer, you'd ought to talk to me, too," came Marian's sleepy protest from the adjoining room.