“I’ve been waiting all evening for that smile, Raquel,” he said. “Began to fear it wasn’t going to come.” “Raquel, give us a tune, can’t you, daughter? Let’s hear somethin’ sweet and sad.” Dad remembered that this would be his last night at home for a long time, perhaps a very long time. Indeed, this knowledge weighed on every one, though no one spoke of it, and no one mentioned that Grant’s ship had sailed the day before. “Raquel’s awful tired, Father; she’s had a hard trip,” said Mom. “I don’t guess she’s even been to her room yet, and I think she ought to get to bed.” They were the first words she had spoken since dinner. But when Mom did speak it was law. Sleepily they dragged themselves up from before the dying fire, Georgie had already said goodnight and disappeared. Mrs. Daniels went with Raquel to her room, leading the way with a kerosene lamp. “Everything’s just as you left it, Raquel, ’cept for one thing,” she said, shy now at this new Raquel, whom she felt had changed ’way off at school there “in the East.” “Oh, Mom! it sure looks lovely.” The big, high-ceilinged room, which had been hers since she was a little girl, was both strange and familiar. A warm fire had been kindled in the corner fireplace, so cozy with its raised hearth, where you could dry your boots or toast your cold toes. The crackling flames threw rosy lights on the painted bedroom set. Yes, it was as pretty, prettier, than she remembered it. Lovely apple green--oh, wait until Anne saw it--with sprays of flowers and dull, yellow-gold shadows. And now at the windows which had been bare always, hung chintz curtains, soft yellow, with green and black, and dashes of cunning cherry color. “Mom! Did you make them?” “Yes’m. Miz Sperry, over in town, at the Emporium you know, she come out and looked at the furniture an’ then sent me the goods. The hems aren’t so good.... I didn’t expect to get ’em up till Spring. I--I don’t suppose they look anything like those curtains of Anne’s you wrote about?” “Mom, they’re just as pretty as any I ever did see.” After Mom had said good night, tucking her in and blowing out the light, Raquel lay snugly in bed, enjoying the firelight, looking about, up at the high ceiling where the same old mud dauber’s nest still clung in a corner; up over her head where the five-foot rattlesnake skin was looped around an old musket. It had twelve rattles; she could count them all from where she lay. Then she laughed out loud. It did look funny, a snake skin, over a Louis Quinze bed. She used to think it was Louis Kahn’s, after the store in San Antone. And those deer antlers on each side her dressing table! They didn’t go so well either. A wonder Jimmy had never told her. Good old Jimmy. He always gave a fellow a chance to find out for himself. How had he ever stood table manners at Los Ranchos? Specially Russell, though Ole Hossfoot was pretty bad.