When he went out to breakfast he murmured in Anthony's ear: "Just tell me, old fellow--to satisfy the curiosity of a bachelor--do these girls of your household always look like this in the early morning? I know it's mean--but you will know how to evade me if I'm too impertinent----" Anthony glanced from Juliet, resembling a pink carnation in her wash frock--February though it was--to Rachel Redding in dark blue and white, and smiled mischievously. "Mrs. Robeson--and Miss Redding--you are challenged," he announced. "Here's a fine old chump who has an awful suspicion that maybe when there are no guests you come down in calico wrappers with day-before-yesterday's aprons on." Juliet gave the doctor a glance which made him pretend to shrink behind Carey for protection. "Will you please answer him, Tony?" she said. "On my word and honour, Roger Barnes, then," said Anthony proudly, "they always look like this." When the doctor left he was weighing carefully in his mind an urgent problem: After waiting six months before making his first visit at the Robesons, how soon could he decently come again? XIV.--STRAWBERRIES "Here are yer strawberries, ma'm." Juliet, alone in her little kitchen, ran to the door in dismay. She looked down at a freckle-faced boy carrying a big basket filled with strawberry-boxes. "But my order was for next Wednesday," she said. "Well, Pa said he cal'lated you'd ruther have 'em when they was at the best, an' that's now. This hot weather's a dryin' 'em up. May not be any good ones by Wednesday." Every housekeeper knows that if there is one thing particularly liable to happen it is the arrival of fruit for preserving at the most inopportune moment of the week. It matters little what the excuse of the sender may be--there is always a sufficient reason why the original date set by the buyer has been ignored. In this case the strawberries had been engaged from a neighbour, and Juliet understood at once that she must not refuse to take them. She stood looking at the rows of baskets upon the table, when the boy had placed them there and gone whistling away. She was in the midst of a flurry of work. It was Saturday, and she was cooking and baking, putting together various dishes to be used upon the morrow. Mr. Horatio Marcy had lately returned from abroad. He and Mrs. Dingley were to spend the coming Sabbath with Juliet and Anthony--the first occasion on which Juliet's father should be entertained in the house. It was an event of importance, and his daughter meant to show him several things concerning her fitness for her present position.