Not until after luncheon did Catherine talk with her mother. The children had to show her their pictures; Charles came in, and Mrs. Spencer wanted to know about his new work; dinner had to be planned. Finally Letty was stowed away for her nap, and Spencer and Marian, with the promise of a walk when she woke, went off to read. "I'll help you with that sewing." Mrs. Spencer threaded her needle. "You've done your shopping in a lump, haven't you? I thought you usually made some of these things." "I won't have time this year." Catherine was half afraid to tell her. Her proposition sounded absurd, as if she heard it through her mother's ears. But Mrs. Spencer listened quietly. "That's what Charles meant, then," she said. "He spoke of it?" Catherine looked up. "He asked if I had heard how modern you had suddenly become." Catherine snapped her thread. She wondered why she had felt this desperate need to make her mother approve of her scheme, and Charles, too. Wouldn't approval come after she had carried it through, if she could? "Do you think me foolish--or wicked?" Mrs. Spencer patted the tape into place on the blouse she held. "Not at all, Cathy," she said. "But you don't think I ought to do it?" "That is for you to decide. You say you have found a nurse?" "Yes." "Did Dr. Henrietta Gilbert suggest this to you?" Catherine's head came up at that, but her irritation scurried off into amusement; her mother looked so guileless, stitching with busy fingers. "You don't see, then, that I can't help it? That I must try something? Oh, Mother, I've thought and thought----" "Yes, that's just it. You think too much. You always thought, Cathy. That's why I was relieved when you met Charles. You didn't think much for a while, at least, and I hoped"--Mrs. Spencer was looking at her, her head on one side, her eyes bright, her mouth turning up in a funny little smile--"I hoped your thinking days were over. But it's in the air so. Women seem to take pride in being restless, unhappy. We were taught to consider that a sin." "Is that why you're so nice?" "No." Mrs. Spencer smiled. "Maybe my children were smarter than yours. I didn't find them such bad company." "Oh, that's not it!" Catherine cried out. Then she laughed. "Mother, you're outrageous. You're making fun of me, just as if----" "As if you wanted to be a missionary again." "But I was only a child then. That was amusing." "Yes. You didn't think so, then." Mrs. Spencer folded the blouse neatly. "Hasn't Spencer grown tall! I see you're buying eleven-year-old clothes for him." "Well"--Catherine's mouth was stubborn--"I'll just have to show you! And Charles, too. He thinks it's a whim, I know." "He hasn't objected?" "Oh, no. Not in words. He wouldn't." "Poor Charles. These modern women in your own home!" Mrs. Spencer's eyes crinkled almost shut. "Do you know why I came back early? Your sister Margaret has a modern turn, too." "But she's not in town yet."