"Well, he's really just a puppy still," Mrs. Cheever explained indulgently. "I'm sure he'll learn in time. Silence, Tarry dear." Tarrigo barked with renewed vigor. "QUIET, SIR!" roared Mr. Payton in a fearful voice, and Tarrigo with a reproachful glance stopped in mid-bark and was still. "Firmness is what is required," said Mr. Payton firmly, but as they entered Mrs. Cheever's house, Portia saw him bend to pat the dog. "No hard feelings, eh, old fellow?" Tarrigo's stump of a tail wagged in reply. Mrs. Cheever owned a splendid parlor, heavily infested with furniture and objects, but her true living room--the one where everything took place--was her kitchen, and it was into this that she led them now. It was a spacious room with white walls, a huge grandmotherly kitchen range that cackled and purred with the fire that was in it, two comfortably cushioned rocking chairs, several other plain sitting chairs, many shining pots and pans, and a shelf holding a row of ancient dolls, all neatly dressed, that Mrs. Cheever had rescued from the Tuckertowns' house, Bellemere. They had belonged to her childhood friend, Baby-Belle Tuckertown, who, like Portia, had never really cared for dolls. "They are company for me," Mrs. Cheever said. "I enjoy their little faces." "Minnie, my dear, what have we on the premises in the way of a celebration collation?" Mr. Payton inquired, stroking his mustache, once to the right, once to the left. "How I wish you would not call me Minnie!" his sister objected. "Though why I should still mind after more than seventy years, I do not know. Indeed I do not." "It's the same with me." Portia sighed. "I hate being called 'Porsh,' but still they call me it. And I guess they always will." "Well, I never shall," Mrs. Cheever assured her, and she went into the larder to see what she could provide in the way of refreshment. In the end she returned with a bottle of cherry mead (to which her brother was partial), a loaf of fresh bread, and a jar of blackberry jam. "And the kettle is just on the boil," she said. "Whoever cares for tea shall have it." Portia had a cup of cambric tea and that was all. She stared as Julian wolfed down bread and jam. "I don't see how you do it," she remarked in some indignation. "You ate about a hundred and fifty-three cookies and brownies less than an hour ago. Why aren't you fat?" "I never get fat," Julian said comfortably. "It all turns into gristle. Gristle and muscle. Look at that." He flexed his arm and the biceps humped up obediently. "Then why don't you get indigestion?" Portia persisted. "You _ought_ to." "Never get indigestion," said Julian complacently. "My stomach knows who's boss."