, mother dear! That's the
situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of doubt there's an eradicable
streak of black walnut in your gray-enamel make-up."

"Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish! I never expected to
meet it out of a book. And, fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I
didn't know there was any situation."

"I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of
mind."

Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her
voice sounded muffled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that
tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter."
She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on.
Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a
bath, won't you, dear?"

"Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?"

"With onions," said Mrs. Brewster, firmly.

Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splashing in a cool tub, heard the voice of
Miz' Merz high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz'
Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter
flannels!"

"Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young
fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair, and
floor impartially.

Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea
Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of
the foot down at each step instead of heel and ball. It gave him a
queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her
throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin
winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner
where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!"

His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat, went darkly red.
He dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was
pressed against his dear prickly one. So they stood for a long
minute--close.

"Need a shave, dad."

"Well, gosh, how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off.
"What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?"

"Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're decorating my studio--you
know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was lonesome for
you."

Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a
little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated
porch swing. "You know," he said, his voic