Then there was Aunt Arthur, who lived in a square brick house that always smelled cool. At her house I invariably sat on a Brussels “kick-about” in the bay window and looked at a big leather “Wonders of Earth and Sea,” with illustrations. Sometimes she let me examine a basket of shells that she herself had gathered at the beach--I used to look at her hands and at her big, flat cameo ring and marvel that they had been so near to the ocean. Once or twice, when I wriggled too outrageously, she would let me go into the large, dim parlour, with its ostrich egg hanging from the chandelier and the stuffed blackbird under an oval glass case before the high mirror, and the coral piled under the centre-table and the huge, gilt-framed landscape which she herself had painted. But this day, between the lace curtains hanging from their cornices, I caught sight of Calista and Delia racing up the hill to the Rodmans, and the entire parlour was, so to say, poisoned. In desperation I went back and asked for a drink of water--my ancient recourse when things got too bad. Aunt Barker’s was better--there was a baby there. But that day ill-luck went before me, for he was asleep and they refused to let me look at him, because they said that woke him up. I disbelieved this, because I saw no reason in it, and nobody gave me a reason. I resolved to try it out the first time I was alone with a sleeping baby. I begged boldly to go outdoors, and Mother would have consented, but Aunt Barker said that a man was painting the lattice and that I would in every probability lean against the lattice, or brush the paint pots, or try to get a drink at the pump, which, I gathered, splashed everybody for miles around. So I sat in a patent rocker, and the only rift in a world of black cloud was that, by rocking far enough, the patent rocker could be made to give forth a wholly delectable squeak. Of course fate swiftly descended; I was bidden discontinue the squeak, and nothing remained to me. Then we went to Grandma Bard’s. I did not in the least know why, but the little rag-carpeted sitting-room, the singing kettle on the back of the coal stove, the scarlet geraniums on the window, the fascinating picture on the clock door, all entertained me at once. Grandma Bard wore a black lace cap, and she bade me sit by her and instantly gave me a peppermint drop from the pocket of her black sateen apron. She asked me no questions, but while she talked with Mother, she laid together two rose-coloured--rose-coloured!--bits of her patchwork and quietly handed them to me to baste--none of your close stitches, only basting! Then she folded a newspaper and asked me to cut it and scallop it for her cupboard shelf. Then she found a handful of hickory nuts and brought me the tack-hammer and a flat-iron.... “Oh, Mother, let’s _not_ go yet,” I heard myself saying.