Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: Cover art] *MAKING OVER MARTHA* BY *JULIE M. LIPPMANN* AUTHOR OF MARTHA BY-THE-DAY, MARTHA AND CUPID NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published October, 1913 Reprinted November (twice), December, 1913 May, August, October, 1914 October, 1915 *MAKING OVER MARTHA* *CHAPTER I* Martha Slawson sat at her sewing-machine, stitching away for dear life. About her, billowed yards upon yards of white cotton cloth, which, in its uncut length, shifted, as she worked, almost imperceptibly piling up a snowy drift in front of her, drawn from the snowy drift behind. This gradual ebb and flow was all that marked any progress in her labor, and her husband, coming in after some hours of absence and finding her, apparently, precisely where he had left her, was moved to ask what manner of garment she was making. "’Tain’t a garment at all, Sam. It’s a motta." "A motto?" Sam fairly gasped. Martha put on more speed, then took her feet from the treadle, her hands from the cloth-plate. "I guess you forgot what’s goin’ to happen, ain’t you?" she returned, sitting back in her chair, looking up at him amiably. Sam squared his great shoulders. "Going to happen? Oh, you mean—you mean—Mr. and Mrs. Ronald coming home?" "Sure I do!" "Well, but I don’t see——" "I didn’t suppose you would see. Men ain’t much on _seein’_ where sentiment’s concerned. They go it blind, an’ that’s a fack. I s’pose a _man_ would let a gen’lman an’ lady come back from their weddin’-tour (which they been gone ’most a year on it), and never think o’ givin’ ’em a welcome home, any more than to find their house an’ grounds kep’ up, an’ their bills kep’ down, an’ everything in tip-top order. But, with a woman it’s different. _I’m_ goin’ to give Miss Claire an’ Lord Ronald a reception that _is_ a reception. Somethin’ they won’t forget in a hurry. I’m goin’ to have lantrens in the trees, an’ a arch of laurel over the gateposts, an’ then, as they come on in, they’ll see my motta strung acrost the driveway— HAIL TO THE CHIEF! in big yella letters, hemmed down on this white. An’ the childern, all four of ’em, is to sing it, besides. Don’t you remember, they learned it at school down home—I should say, in New York, that time the president come back, an’ all the public-school childern sung’m a welcome?"