"I'll ring, Auntie; Flora will get it in a minute. Mama, I bet you haven't walked an inch this day! I knew you'd take the car if I didn't come and drag you on to your legs," she ended, maliciously; but it was such pretty malice, and her face was so gayly amiable that her mother surrendered. "The only thing that reconciles me to Billy-boy's being too poor to give us an auto," Laura said, gravely, "is that Mama would weigh a ton if she rode everywhere. I bet you've eaten six cream-cheese sandwiches, Mama? You'll gain a pound for each one!" "You'll be the death of me, Lolly," her mother sighed. "I only ate three. Well, I'll stay a little longer, Ellen, and walk part way home with this child. She's a perfect tyrant," she added, with tender, scolding pride in the charming young creature, whose arch impertinence was irresistible. "Take off your coat, my dear," Mrs. Payton said, patting her niece's hand, "and go and look at my puzzle over on the table. Five hundred pieces! I'm afraid it will take me a week yet to work it out;"--then, in an aside: "Laura, I'm mortified that I should have asked Mr. Maitland the title of that book before you,"--Laura opened questioning eyes;--"so indelicate of Fred to tell him to read it! Oh, here's Flora with the lemon. Thank you, Flora.... Laura, do you know what Freddy is thinking of doing now?" "Yes, the real-estate business. It's perfectly corking! Howard Maitland says he thinks she's simply great to do it. I only wish _I_ could go into business and earn some money!" "My dear, if you will save some money in your own home, you will be just as well off," Mrs. Childs said, dryly. "Better off," Mr. Weston ventured, "but you won't have so much fun. This idea of Fred's is a pretty expensive way of earning money." "You know about it?" Mrs. Payton said, surprised. "Oh, yes; she broke it to me yesterday." "Just what is her idea?" Mrs. Childs asked, with mild impatience. "Let me explain it," Frederica's man of business said ... and proceeded to put the project into words of three letters, so to speak. Fred had hit on the fact that there are many ladies--lone females, Mr. Weston called them; who drift about looking for apartments;--"nice old maids. I know two of them at this minute, the Misses Graham, cousins of mine in Grafton. They are going to spend the winter in town, and they want a furnished apartment. It must be near a drug-store and far enough from an Episcopal church to make a nice walk on Sundays--_fair_ Sundays. And it must be on the street-car line, so that they can go to concerts, with, of course, a messenger-boy to escort them; for they 'don't mean to be a burden to a young man'; that's me, I'll have you know! 'A young man'! When a chap is forty-six that sounds very well. Fred proposes to find shelters for just such people." [Illustration: "LET ME EXPLAIN IT," FREDERICA'S MAN OF BUSINESS SAID ... AND PROCEEDED TO PUT THE PROJECT INTO WORDS OF THREE LETTERS]