Ella’s swear word even had a fashionable fillip! Momma had never sworn in her life, or, that is, hardly ever; certainly not with a smile. When she had needed profane words, she had used stupid old-womanish expletives. But Ella’s casual objurgation broke the ice magically. There is nothing that clears the air of formality like a little damn. Momma was so numb that it merely startled her from her torpor. She laughed the first laugh that had been shaken out of her dust bin of a soul for six weeks. After that the two old women were themselves again, two girls who had parted and gone round the world two opposite ways and come together at last to exchange experiences. Their costumes and their dialects had changed with their travel, but their hearts were as of old. Momma had to hear first of Ella’s amazing experiences. This desire itself was a miracle of change; she had already forgotten herself for a while. Ella’s husband came home before Ella had finished her Arabian Nights’ Entertainment and he was pleasantly surprised and surprising. He had expected Mattie to be more ill than she was and he had not expected her to look at all like his own wife. He knew only too well how expensive Ella’s looks were and how different a life she led from the women of the old home town. The dinner was simple but “awful tasty,” as Mattie proclaimed. She was astounded to find herself eating with relish. But the service was irresistible. The amiable gentleman who handed the plates around and took them away was so solicitous about suggesting to her the best morsels that she could not insult him by refusing anything or break his heart by leaving an untouched plate for him to carry away. Sam Killip was eager to know about all the friends and enemies of his youth and remembered so well the people and the nooks and the scraps of those good old days that the dinner went by like a wedding feast. Fortunately the Killip children were away at schools and house parties and Momma was not subjected to the inspection of a generation that found even Ella Killip old-fashioned and conservative. When Ella said she had given up trying to keep up with the youngsters, Momma laughed her to scorn with a quaint phrase: “Oh, yes, to hear you tell it!” After dinner Sam had a meeting of some charitable board, and Ella and Mattie settled down for a confab. Ella neglected to mention that she had sent her opera box to friends of hers, and she made no allusion to the fact that it was the first performance of a new rôle for Caruso, and she would have given an eyetooth to hear him. She spread Momma out on what she called a chaise longue. Momma said it was the only comfortable sofa she’d ever laid on and she was going to have one like it if it busted Poppa. Momma was already planning for the future! And thinking of it in terms of comfort! She was reluctant to discuss her famous illness, but Ella insisted on knowing the worst.