Just for an instant, Laura's face changed; then she flung her head up, and said, "Oh, yes; I want to see Aunt Nelly. I'll be right back. (I'll give 'em a chance," she told herself, grimly.) Up-stairs, she roamed about the sitting-room, sniffing at the hyacinths, and looking into the little, devout books, and even adding a piece or two to the picture puzzle on the table. Then she sympathized with Mrs. Payton's Christmas fatigue--"you oughtn't to give so many presents, Aunt Nelly!" "Oh, my dear, it gets worse each year! People send me things, and of course I have to pay my debts. So tiresome." "It's awful," said Laura; and straightened her mother's toque, and kissed her. "Darling, your hat is always crooked," she scolded, cuddling her cheek against her mother's. "Mama, we're going to have a suffrage parade, in April; will you carry a banner?" "Oh, my dear!" Mrs. Payton protested. "One of those horrid parades here? I thought we would escape that!" "Your father won't think of letting you walk in it, Laura," Mrs. Childs warned her, with amiably impersonal discouragement. Laura's face sobered: "You make him let me, darling," she entreated. Mrs. Payton looked at them enviously. Nobody hated those vulgar, muddy, unladylike parades more than she did, but she knew, in the bottom of her heart, that if Freddy had snuggled against her, as Laura snuggled up to Bessie, she would almost have walked in one herself! "Papa says those parades are perfect nonsense," Mrs. Childs said; "what good do they do, anyhow?" "We stand up to be counted," Laura explained. "Papa won't allow it," her mother repeated, placidly. "I'm sure Mr. Weston will use his influence to prevent Freddy's doing it," said Mrs. Payton. Then the two ladies exchanged their usual melancholy comments on the times, and Laura listened, making her own silent comments on one fallacy after another, but preserving always her sweet and cheerful indifference to their grievances. She looked at the clock once or twice--surely she had given Howard and Fred time enough! But she waited for still another ten minutes, then, coughing carefully on the staircase, went down to the parlor. Her consideration was unnecessary. Howard, standing with his hands in his pockets, his back to the fire, had been telling Frederica that he was going in for conchology seriously. "I know you don't think shells are worth much," he ended, after giving her what he called a "spiel" as to why he was going and what he was going to do. "But to me conchology is like searching for buried treasure! I've been pawing round for a real job, and now I've got it. I don't have to earn money, so I can earn work! And I think research work means as much to the world as--as anything else. I wanted you to know it was a real thing to me," he ended, gravely. "Shells aren't awfully vital to civilization," she said.