“Why, Rilla, I didn’t propose to give her my share of the soap. But it would be cheaply got rid of that way. Yes,” exclaimed Infant, with sudden recklessness, “I would rather _buy_ soap, and pay out money to have this dirty stuff carted off, than ever smell it again while I live. Let us make a new rule, and give our fat and ashes to the Robbs. They have farmed for us ever since father died,” Infant pleaded, “and whatever you say, Rilla, I know you have the greatest confidence in them.” “The poorhouse wagon is never going to call for me,” said Rilla decidedly. “You can go and build a fire under the kettle, while I carry some more water to pour on the ash-hopper. That lye is strong enough to bear up a setting of eggs, but we may need some more a little weaker.” “Rilla, I am as firm as the ash-hopper itself. You can’t shake me any more than you could our brick smoke-house. I won’t help make any more soap--especially on rose day,” added Infant to herself. “I don’t see any sense in it.” “But you can see sense in spoiling dozens of good roses to load yourself up with like a mad Ophelia. You feel above all the associations of wash day, though the Princess Nausicaa didn’t.” “Oh, Rilla, I don’t feel above anything. I merely feel under that soap kettle, and as if it would crush my soul out, as the shields crushed Tarpeia, if I didn’t throw it off.” “Well, I am going to make soap,” said Rilla, whitening with intense disapproval of the liberty her twin proposed to grasp. “You are not a minor, and if you were, I’m not your guardian. But if you propose to go to yourself and leave me to myself, we both know what belongs to us, and it is easily done.” This time-worn hint, which in her girlhood used to startle and distress Infant so much, made but the slightest impression on her hearing now, as she leaned over the veranda railing to look at the roses. There were such abundant stacks of them: she might cut and pile them into a pyramid almost as tall as herself. Such smooth, sweet tea-roses, such crimson velvet-petaled Jacqueminots, blush and white so fragrant you would be willing to drown yourself in a sea of their scent; yellow roses piercingly delightful, Prairie Queens creeping all over the front of the house, old hundred-leaved varieties, having always in their depths a reminder of grandmother’s chests and long, long past days. There were eighteen distinct families of roses, each family a mighty tribe, marshaled before Infant on lawn and dewy stretch of garden. It was rose day. She would not let herself think of anything else. Rilla would not come to the embowered dinner-table which Infant prepared so carefully, and to which she called her sister exactly as the clock struck twelve. Rose day never interfered with Infant’s duties. Her conscience acquitted her of shirking. Often in dead winter-time, when the snow piled up, and Enos Robb’s family settled down to the enjoyment of colds and rheumatism, she fed all the stock herself.