“Oh, she's wonderful,” Varian agreed easily. “There's nobody like Mrs. Dud, of course.” She stopped her work a moment and looked curiously at him. “What do you mean by that?” she asked. “You all say it--in just that way; but I don't think I quite see what you mean. Why is she wonderful? Because she looks so young?” “That, in the first place,” Varian returned, with a smile, “but not only that.” “Of course that is very strange,” she mused. “Now Lizzie is three years older than I. You would never think it, would you?” “No,” he agreed, still smiling; “but then, Mrs. Dud looks younger than everybody. It is her specialty. I think what we mean,” he continued, “is her amazing capacity; she does so much, so ridiculously much, and so much better than other people. We try to keep up with things--your sister is a little bit ahead. She seems to have always been doing the very latest thing, you see. And all her responsibilities, her various affairs--it makes one's head swim! The women have set themselves a tremendous field to cover nowadays, and when one succeeds so admirably--” He paused. She shook her head thoughtfully. “But everything is done for her!” she protested. “Why, I have never yet seen all the servants in this house! And you know there is a housekeeper? Lizzie sees her a little while in the morning, that's all. And she never sews a stitch--there's a seamstress here all the time, you know, and that has nothing to do with the clothes that come home in boxes. And little Dudley has his tutor, and his old nurse that looks after his clothes. What is it that she does to make it so wonderful?” He only smiled at her perplexity, and she added confidentially: “Lizzie wanted me to go to her dressmaker, but I didn't like the idea of a man, to begin with, and then I knew Miss Simms would feel so hurt. She lives in Albany, and she's made my dresses for so long that I thought, though she may not be so stylish, I'd better keep up with her; wouldn't you?” A perfectly unreasonable tenderness surged through his heart. How sweet she was! “If she made that dress, I certainly should!” he declared. She smoothed the crisp lavender folds deprecatingly. “Oh, this is only a cotton dress,” she said. “But she made my gray silk, too, and Lizzie herself said it fitted beautifully.” She took up the bottle again: it was nearly empty. “Now my mother,” she began, “_she_ was wonderful, if you like. Do you know what my mother used to do? We lived on the farm, you know, like yours, and most of the work of that farm mother did. She did the cooking--for all the hired hands, too; she made the butter, and took care of the hens; she made the candles and the soap; she made the carpets and all our clothes--my brothers', too; and she put up preserves and jellies and cordials, and did the most beautiful embroidery; I have some of mother's embroidered collars, and I can't do anything like them.” “It was tremendous,” he said. “My Aunt Delia did that, too.”