Amelia had begun making herself, Raven used to think, long before God stopped making her. As a girl, she had gone after strange gods of culture and aestheticism, forsaking them, when they toppled, for newer gods still; but always she was undaunted, always persisting in her determined pose of governing the situation and her own attitude toward it. And Amelia, he knew, could hang on like grim death. "But Nan!" she was exclaiming, "who'd have expected to find you here?" "Well," said Nan, in the shock of realizing she hadn't quite remembered what Amelia was like, and ranging herself to fight on Rookie's side, "who'd have expected you, Mrs. Powell?" Dick stood frowning at them impartially and twisting his hat in his hands like a sulky boy. "Have you opened your house?" Amelia persisted. "You're not staying----" "She's staying here," said Raven. "Nan's taken pity on me and come up for a visit. Oh, Charlotte! here you are. Show Mrs. Powell to her room, will you?" Charlotte appearing, white-aproned, in the doorway, looking like the beneficent goddess of home, Mrs. Powell greeted her urbanely and asked appropriate questions. Was she well, as well as she looked? And how was her husband? Always well, she remembered. Yes, she would go to her room, please. But she'd go up by herself. She knew the way. She should think so, indeed! And her reminiscent laugh endowed them with the picture of the little girl she had been, born and brought up in this very house. "Oh, but it isn't up," said Raven cheerfully. "It's the west bedroom." "Not----" she began, and he nodded, taking her coat from the chair. "Yes, Old Crow's room. What was going to be his if he hadn't given 'em the slip. I put Nan into the west chamber. You'll be awfully comfortable in that room, Milly. I'll take in your bag." Amelia, immediately circumspect when she did not see her way, did follow him, but she was in as great a state of suppressed dudgeon as a civilized lady, living by the latest rules, allows herself to be. Dick and Nan, left alone in the dining-room, turned upon each other like two young furies. "You came up here," said Dick, in a tone of ill-suppressed ire, "to tell him we were coming. I call it a mean trick." "What about you?" inquired Nan. "You'd better not talk about tricks. Can you think of a meaner one than giving him away to the entire middle west?'" "The middle west!" echoed Dick bitterly. "I told my mother." "Yes, you told your mother. And she comes up here with her alienists." "You'll notice," said Dick icily, "the alienist didn't come." "I assume," said Nan, "he's expected on the next train. Or he's going to pounce some time when Rookie isn't prepared."