"Oh, I'll go," said Nan recklessly. "But we'll take Tira. And we'll build her a temple in a jungle and put her up on a pedestal and feed her with tropical fruits and sit cross-legged before her so many hours a day and meditate on her mystery." "What would she say?" Raven wondered, and then laughed out in a quick conviction. "No, she wouldn't say anything. She'd accept it, as she does foddering the cows." "Certainly," said Nan. "That's Tira." "You've forgotten the baby." "Yes," said Nan, soberly. "Poor little boy!" They were serious and could play no more, and presently turned into the back road and so home. At supper they had a beautiful time, the lights soft, the fire purring, and the shades up so that the cold austerities of night could look in without getting them. Nan had done a foolish thing, one of those for which women can give no reason, for usually they do not know which one it is out of the braided strands of all the reasons that make emotion. She had unearthed a short pink crepe frock she used to wear in her childish days, and let her heavy hair hang in two braids tied with pink ribbons. Did she want to lull Rookie's new-born suspicion of her as a too mature female thing, by stressing the little girl note, or did she slip into the masquerading gown because it was restful to go back the long road that lay between the present and the days when there was no war? Actually she did not know. She did know she had flown wildly "up attic," the minute Rookie announced the daring plan of the visit, and flung open chest after chest, packed by Aunt Anne's exact hands, with this and that period of her clothes. Why had Aunt Anne kept them, she straightened herself to wonder, at one point, throwing them out in a disorderly pile, ginghams, muslins, a favorite China silk. Could it be Aunt Anne had loved her, not so much as she loved Rookie, but in the same hidden, inflexible way, and wanted to preserve the image of her as she grew to girlhood, in the clothes she had worn? It was not likely, she concluded, and was relieved to dismiss even the possibility. It would have made too much to live up to, a present loyalty of obedience which, if Aunt Anne in the heavenly courts had anything like her earthly disposition, would be the only thing to satisfy her. Nan didn't mean to do anything definitely displeasing, especially to Aunt Anne. She simply meant to enjoy to the full the ecstasy of living, just as if it were going on for a lifetime, under the same roof with Rookie and having him all to herself. Then she came on the pink crepe, with its black bows, and gave a tiny nod of satisfaction there in the attic dusk, and was all in a glow, though it was so cold.