"I wish I could. Peach cream is terribly tempting, but if I'm not at the table Mr. Burnham is as injured as if I'd done him a grievous wrong. He's the only child I have, you know, and I guess he's rather--" Mrs. Moon smiled in the laughing face. "I guess he is. Good-bye." Chapter XVI MEN AND HUSBANDS When Mrs. Burnham reached the house in which Miss Gibbie lived she hesitated for a moment, hand on the gate, then opened it and walked slowly up the brick box-bordered path to the steps of the pillared porch. The door was open, and inside was Miss Gibbie, the morning paper in her hand. A quick, absorbing glance took in each detail of the well-kept grounds, the beds of old-fashioned flowers, the fine old trees and stately house, but not until the porch was reached did she look toward the open door. As she neared it she lowered her parasol, and at its click Miss Gibbie's eyes peered over the top of the paper and looked at her. "Good-morning! May I come in?" Miss Gibbie put the paper on the chair by her side, took off her glasses, wiped them, put them back, and again looked at her visitor. "Not until I look at you for half a minute," she said. "Raise that parasol and stand just where you are. There! That's right! In the doorway you look like a Roisart I saw some years ago in France. I wanted to buy it, but the man imagined I was one of those fool Americans who value a thing according to its price, and charged what he thought he could get. He got nothing. Come in. Do you make you own clothes?" "I make my summer ones." Mrs. Burnham's face lighted with amusement, and, as she took the chair Miss Gibbie pushed toward her, she brushed back the stray strands of hair the breeze had blown across her face, and fastened them securely. "I told some one the other day you were an illustration of what I have always contended, and that is a woman can look well in very inexpensive clothes if she has sense enough to get the right kind. I hear you have a good deal of sense." "I have in some things." Mrs. Burnham laughed and took the fan Miss Gibbie held toward her. "I've shown it to-day by coming to see you. Of course I shouldn't, according to regulations, as you won't come to see me, but I wanted to see you and so I came. Do you mind--that I have come?" The sweet, fine face of the questioner flushed and, at sight of it, Miss Gibbie smiled, then tapped it with the tip of the turkey-wing fan. "I am glad you have come. You are so fresh and cool in that white dress it's good to look at you. Did you go to the lecture last night? I hear the Mother's Club is made up of old maids and childless married women; but as they're the only ones who know anything about children nowadays, it's very proper they should issue edicts concerning them. What was the lecture about?"