s. Buckham smiled upon
the smaller Corner House girls quite as warmly as did Mr. Buckham
himself.

"I do declare! this is a pleasure," she cried, drawing one little girl
after the other to her to be kissed. "Little flower faces! Aren't they,
Posy? Wish I had a garden full o' them--that I do!"

"My mercy, Mrs. Buckham! I'm glad you ain't," laughed the maid. "Not if
they all favored Mr. Buckham and brought as much mud in on their feet as
he does."

"Never mind, Posy," cried the very jolly invalid. "_I_ don't track up
your clean floors--and that's a blessing, isn't it?"

Dot looked rather askance at the bright-colored afghan that hid the
crippled legs of the good woman. The legs were so still, and the afghan
covered them so completely, that to the little girl's mind it seemed as
though she had no lower limbs at all!

She and Tess, however, were soon quite friendly with the invalid. Posy
bustled about between kitchen and sitting room, laying a round table in
the latter room for tea for the expected guests. Mr. Buckham, having
scraped his boots, came in.

"Well, how be ye, Marm?" he asked his wife, kissing her as though he had
just returned from a long journey.

"Just the same, Bob," she replied, laughing. "I ain't been fur from my
chair since you was gone."

Mr. Buckham chuckled hugely at this old pleasantry between them. They
both seemed to accept her affliction as though it were a joke, or a
matter of small importance. Yet Mrs. Buckham had been confined to her
chair and her bed for twenty years.

Before Ruth and Agnes, with Neale O'Neil, reached the farmhouse, driving
over from Lycurgus Billet's chestnut woods, Tess and Dot were having a
most delightful visit. Dot was amusing Mrs. Buckham with her chatter,
and likewise holding a hank of yarn for the invalid to wind off in a
ball; while Tess, of course, had got upon her favorite topic of
conversation, and was telling Mr. Buckham all about the need of the
Women's and Children's Hospital, and about Mrs. Eland.

"You see, she's such an awfully nice lady--and so pretty," said Tess,
warmly. "It would be an awful thing if she had to go away--and she
hasn't any place to go. But the hospital's _got_ to have money!"

"Eland--Eland?" repeated Mr. Bob Buckham, reflectively. "Isn't that name
sort o' familiar, Marm?" he asked his wife.

"The Aden girl married an Eland," said Mrs. Buckham, quickly. "He died
soon after and left her a widow. Is it the same? Marion Aden?"