The lunch was ready soon and to the visitors it was very pleasant as they went into the little dining-room. It was so small that the chairs on one side had to be careful not to back up against the sideboard. The rug was worn to thinness but the straight curtains at the windows, which did not shut out the sun, were daffodil yellow and on the table the little pottery bowl with three blossoming daffodils picked out the same note of defiant sunlight again. Helen looked around her appreciatively. Freda served them quietly, slipping into her own chair, nearest the door to the kitchen, only after the dishes were all in place and every one eating. She took her own plate from her mother absently. The others were talking. She listened to them, the throaty, assured voice of Mrs. Brownley, Miss Duffield’s clear, definite tones and the voice of Mrs. Flandon, with a note of laughter in it always, as if she mocked at the things she said. Yet always with light laughter. “Are you interested in all this political business?” asked Mrs. Flandon of her, suddenly. “No,” said Freda, “Not especially. But mother is, so I hear a great deal of it.” Her mother laughed a little reprovingly. “Freda has been too busy to give these things time and thought.” “How are you busy? At home?” She let her mother answer that. “Freda graduated from the Normal last year. We hoped there would be a teaching opening here for her but as there wasn’t, we persuaded her to stay home with us and take a little special work at the Normal.” Helen kept her eyes on the girl’s face. Keenly sensitive to beauty as she was, she had felt that it was the girl rather than the mother who created the atmosphere of this house with which she felt in sympathy. She wanted to talk to her. As the meal progressed she kept her talking, drew her out little by little, and confidence began to come back to Freda’s face and frankness to her tongue. “She’s beautiful,” thought Helen, “such a stunning creature.” But it was later that she got the key to Freda. They were in the living room and she picked up some of the books on the table. They interested her. It was a kind of reading which showed some taste and contemporary interest. There was the last thin little gray-brown “Poetry,” there was “The Tree of Heaven,” “Miss Lulu Bett,” Louis Untermeyer’s poems. Those must be Freda’s. There was also what you might expect of Mrs. Thorstad. Side by side lay the “Education of Henry Adams” and “The Economic Consequences of the Peace.” “Of course the mother reads those,” thought Helen, “after she’s sure they’re so much discussed that they’re not dangerous any longer. But the mother never reads ‘Poetry.’” “Your daughter likes poetry?” she asked Mrs. Thorstad. “She reads a great deal of it. I wish I could make her like more solid things. But of course she’s young.” Mrs. Flandon went out to the kitchen where Freda was vigorously clearing up. “You’re doing all the work,” she protested.