She was thinking about those onion-sets as she looked at the japonica bushes, trying to see whether they were actually budding. She could not, as a lady, admit even to herself how largely her sister's living depended upon the ignoble bulbs even more than upon the refined produce of the little garden. Her own living also depended upon this bit of earth; but that was not nearly so important, from her point of view. Miss Sophia came first in everything, even in the annual consideration of the problem of the onion-sets. Miss Judy, thinking that the house in which gentlewomen lived should never smell of anything but dried rose leaves, asked Miss Sophia if she did not think the same. Miss Sophia, who had thought nothing about it, and who objected to the odor of onions only because it made her very hungry, answered "Just so, sister Judy," very promptly and very decisively, as she always answered everything that Miss Judy said. Consequently the tidy calico bag containing the onion-sets was banished to the kitchen for the winter, to become a source of secret uneasiness to Miss Judy the whole season through. Merica, the cook, was not so dependable a personage as Miss Judy could have wished her to be. There was indeed something disturbingly uncertain in her very name. Miss Judy always thought it must be _A_-merica, but Merica always stoutly insisted that her whole real true name was Mericus-Ves-Pat-rick-One-of-the-Earliest-Settlers-of-Kentucky, and Miss Judy gave up all further discussion of the subject simply because she was overwhelmed, not because she was convinced.