They stopped at a corner drug store and had ice cream sodas. Charley was to spend the night at the Prairie Avenue house. She had a brilliant thought. "Let's bring a chocolate soda home to Aunt Charlotte." They ordered two in pressed paper cartons and presented them at midnight to Aunt Charlotte and Jeannette. Jeannette, looking like a rose baby, ate hers in a semi-trance, her lids weighted with sleep. But great-aunt Charlotte was wide-awake immediately, as though a midnight chocolate ice cream soda were her prescribed night-cap. She sipped and blinked and scraped the bottom of the container with her spoon. Then, with an appreciative sigh, she lay back on her pillow. "What time is it, Lottie?" "After midnight. Twelve-twenty." "That's nice," said Aunt Charlotte. "Let's have waffles for breakfast." The mice were playing. It was Lottie's idea that they accomplish the spring house cleaning in three volcanic days instead of devoting a week or more to it, as was Mrs. Payson's habit. "Let's all pitch in," she said, "and get it over with. Then we'll have a week to play in." Mrs. Payson was to remain ten days at French Lick. There followed such an orgy of beating, pounding, flapping, brushing, swashing, and scrubbing as no corps of able-bodied men could have survived. The women emerged from it with shrivelled fingers, broken nails, and aching spines, but the Prairie Avenue house was clean, even to the backs of the pictures. After it was over Lottie had a Turkish bath, a manicure, and a shampoo and proclaimed herself socially accessible. Hulda drank coffee happily, all day. Great-aunt Charlotte announced that she thought she'd have some of the girls in for the afternoon. She invited a group of ancients whose names sounded like the topmost row of Chicago's social register. Their sons or grandsons were world-powers in banking, packing, grain-distribution. Some of them Aunt Charlotte had not seen in years. They rolled up in great fat black limousines and rustled in black silks as modish as Aunt Charlotte's own. Lottie saw to the tea and left them absolutely alone. She heard them snickering and gossiping in their high plangent voices. They bragged in a well-bred way about their sons or grandsons or sons-in-law. They gossiped. They reminisced. "And do you remember when the Palmer House barber shop floor was paved at intervals with silver dollars and the farmers used to come from miles around to see it?" "There hasn't been a real social leader in Chicago since Mrs. Potter Palmer died." "Yes, I know. She's tried. But charm--that's the thing she hasn't got. No. She thinks her money will do it. Never." "Well, it seems----" What a good time they were having, Lottie thought. She had set the table in the dining room. There were spring flowers and candles. She saw that they were properly served, but effaced herself. She sensed that her presence would, somehow, mar Aunt Charlotte's complete sense of freedom, of hospitality, of hostesship.