The house was set close to the street but wide side yards separated it from its newer neighbors. It was pretentiously ugly with its mansard roof, intricate porches, balconies and bay windows that had evidently been added after the original architectural atrocity had been committed. At her first glance as the pert and frilly maid opened the door it seemed as though the whole house were filled with innumerable elaborate draperies and fat-framed paintings and much stuffed furniture. While she waited for the maid to announce her, her quick ears caught the nervous undertone of the house--the whining voices of children above stairs, the quick clatter of dishes in the far off pantry and a politely peevish voice that was raised as its owner struggled with an imperfect telephone connection. "--just at my wits' end--both maids have the day out,--the children are off my hands for the day--they're going to be in the pageant--but it is awkward for all that. Uncle Peter's nurse insists that she has to go out and it doesn't leave any one to stay with him. Fred is so unreasonable about our leaving Uncle Peter alone. Of course if the Exchange did send the sewing person to do the mending I could go--only you never can tell whether people like that are honest or not--they often aren't--" The "sewing person" in the overstuffed chair looked straight ahead of her. She shut her lips together and tried desperately not to listen. "--that's all I can promise--if the sewing person comes and can sit in the hall--I think it would be perfectly horrid if you had to play a three table--if I can't get there in time for luncheon I'll hurry around by half past two--that is if I possibly can." Her irritable voice was still raised to telephone pitch as she hurried toward her new seamstress. It wasn't until she had ushered Felicia into the draughty angle of the upper hall where she was to sew that Mrs. Alden discovered Babiche. She objected. Felicia cuddled her tiny dog. "Why, she's a precious," she protested sweetly. "She'll just stay right beside me if you can find her a cushion--" She felt very small and meek as she sat taking her wee neat stitches. All about her the unpleasant confusion of the house surged on. The half-grown children departed tempestuously for the pageant, their mother bustled out leaving a trail of half explicit instructions behind her. The last Felicia heard of her voice was a fretful instruction to the cook. "--and you'll have to take something or other up to the sewing woman-- some of that cold lamb will do--" Felice wrinkled her nose commiseratingly at Babiche's questioning eyes. Babiche the elder had hated cold lamb. From the door to her left she could hear soothing murmurs of a voice reading. A carefully modulated voice that evidently cared nothing at all about what it was reading. An irascible masculine "Well, well, never mind that!" frequently interrupted the reader. At noon the voice stopped and a patient nurse appeared in the doorway.