"Father," said the girl, "don't you want to see if the car is ready?" The look of animation which had come over the man's face when he began to talk about his ill health vanished again. He started toward the door. "Let me," said I, springing ahead of him. The car, of course, was waiting, the chauffeur sitting in it gazing vacantly down the road, with the patient stare of the true flunkey. I came back and reported. With a polite good-bye and an invitation to call and see their garden, our guests departed. Stella and I stood in the south room and listened to the car rumble over the bridge. Then we looked at one another in silence. Presently she picked up what appeared like a whole pack of calling cards from the table, and glanced at them. "John," she said, "it's begun. They've called on me. I shall have to return the call. Are all the rest like them, do you suppose? Are they all so deadly dumb? Have they no playfulness of mind? I tried 'em out on purpose. They don't arrive." "They're rich," said I. "Almost all rich people are bores. We bored them. The old man, though, seemed about to become quite animated on the subject of his stomach." Stella laughed. "I'm _glad_ we were in old clothes," she said. "And aren't Epictetus and Luella darlings?" "By the way," I cried, "why haven't I met them before?" "I just discovered them this noon," she answered. "You were working at the time. I was saving them for a surprise after supper. I'm glad Gladys and Gaynor brought no grandchildren, though. It would have been hard to name so many correctly right off the bat, and it's terrible to start life with a wrong name." "As Mike would say, it is surely," I answered. "That is why they were careful to call you Stella." "Do you like the name?" she whispered, creeping close to me. "Oh, John, I'm glad we're not rich like them"--with a gesture toward the pack of calling cards--"I'm glad we can work in the garden with our own hands and play games with toads and just be ourselves. Let's _never_ be rich!" "I promise," said I, solemnly. Then we laughed and went to hear the hermit thrush. Chapter XXI AUTUMN IN THE GARDEN