The answer was not such as she expected, and she gave him a scrutinizing glance. "Surely, if I have ever seen a laborer, he's one," she thought, as with woman's quickness she inventoried his coarse, weather-stained straw hat, blue cotton shirt crossed by suspenders mended with strings, shapeless trousers, once black, but now of the color of the dusty cornfield, and shoes such as she had never seen on the avenue. Even if Roger's face had not been discolored by perspiration and browned by exposure, its contrast with the visage that memory kept before her but too constantly would not have been pleasing. Nothing in his appearance deterred her from saying briefly, "I wish you would bring those trunks to our rooms. We have already waited for them some little time, and Mr. Atwood said that his man would attend to them when he came home from his work." "That's all right, but I'm not his man, and with another stiff bow he passed on. "Roger," called Mrs. Atwood from the kitchen door, "where's Jotham?" "Bringing home the cows." "The ladies want their trunks," continued his mother, in a sharp, worried tone. "I wish you men-folks would see to 'em right away. Why couldn't you quit work a little earlier to-night?" Roger made no reply, but proceeded deliberately to help himself to a wash-basin and water. "Look here, Roger," said his mother, in a tone she seldom used, "if those trunks are not where they belong in ten minutes, Susan and I'll take 'em up ourselves." "That would be a pretty story to go out," added his sister. "Little use your buggy would be to you then, for no nice girl would ride with you." "Come, come, what's the use of such a bother!" said the young man irritably. "Mother knows that I'd carry the trunks up on Bald-Top before I'd let her touch them. That's the way it will always be with these city people, I suppose. Everybody must jump and run the moment they speak. Father's right, and we'll have to give up our old free-and-easy life and become porters and waiting-maids." "I've heard enough of that talk," said Mrs. Atwood emphatically. "Your father's been like a drizzling northeaster all day. Now I give you men-folks fair warning. If you want any supper you must wake up and give me something better than grumbling. I'm too hot and tired now to argue over something that's been settled once for all." The "warning" had the desired effect, for Mrs. Atwood was the recognized head of the commissary department, and, as such, could touch the secret springs of motives that are rarely resisted. The open kitchen windows were so near that Mildred could not help overhearing this family jar, and it added greatly to her depression. She felt that they had not only lost their own home, but were also banishing the home feeling from another family. She did but scant justice to Mrs. Atwood's abundant supper, and went to her room at last with that most disagreeable of all impressions--the sense of being an intruder.