“Eva darned them a good many years,” he said, with some warmth, “and did the housework. Why shouldn’t I?” He looked at her hard and went on, “Do you know what you are saying to me, Mattie Farnham? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else.” Mattie Farnham was for a moment helpless with shock over his attack. When she slowly rose to a comprehension of what he had said she shouted indignantly, “Lester Knapp, how dare you say such a thing! I never _dreamed_ of having such an awful idea.” She brought out a formula again, but this time with heartfelt personal conviction, “Home-making is the noblest work anybody can do!” “Why pity me then?” asked Lester with a grin, drawing his needle in and out of the little stocking. “Well, but....” she said breathlessly, and was silent. There was a pause. Then she asked meekly, climbing down with relief from the abstruse and unfamiliar abstract to the friendly concrete, “However in the world did you _learn_ to darn, Lester?” “Out of a book,” he told her tranquilly. “While I was still in bed I sent to the Library for any books they had on housekeeping. They sent me some corking ones--as good reading as ever I saw.” “Why, I didn’t know they had books about housekeeping at the Library!” said Mattie, who was a great reader of novels. “I bet I know more about cooking than you do, this minute,” he said, laughing at her. “Why do you put your flour for a cream sauce into the butter and cook it before you add the milk?” “I don’t,” she said, astonished. “I heat my milk and mix my flour with a little cold water and....” “Well, you’re wrong,” he said authoritatively. “That’s not the best way. The flour isn’t thoroughly cooked. Fat can be heated many degrees hotter than water.” Mattie Farnham felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a stupid bewilderment. Was it really Lester Knapp with whom she sat discussing recipes? She had come over to sympathize and condole with him. However in the living world had she been switched off to cream sauce? She got up, shook herself and took a step or two around the room. “Don’t go looking to see if the furniture is dusted or the floor polished,” said Lester calmly. “We concentrate on the important things in our house and let the non-essentials go.” “I wasn’t thinking about _dust_!” she told him, exasperated (although she had been). And then, struck by a sudden thought, “Where’s Stephen?” “Out in his sandpile.” “Why, I thought he ran away if he was left out of anybody’s sight for a minute. I thought you didn’t dare let him be by himself for....” “Oh, Stevie’s all right,” said Lester carelessly; “he’s coming along like a house afire.”