ate of Happy House they
separated, Peter promising to be on hand at the Cove at four o'clock,
Nancy watched him swing down the road with a pleasant sense of
comradeship.

CHAPTER XIV

MRS. EATON CALLS

"Oh, shades of Odysseus," muttered Nancy. From the swing on the
hollyhock porch she had spied Mrs. Eaton coming up the flagged path to
the front door.

As she sat idly swinging, Nancy had been trying over the deeply
emotional lines that Berthe, the much-suffering heroine of her dear
play, should say when the villain proved to be her lover in disguise.
A chance glance through the syringas had acquainted her with the
alarming fact that an avenging enemy approached.

It was the day after the Fourth of July. As yet not a word had come to
Happy House concerning Nancy's part in the celebration.

There was not time for Nancy to escape; however, it was not likely that
Miss Sabrina would take such a guest out to the porch. Nancy heard her
greet the newcomer, then their steps approached the sitting-room. The
swing was at the other end of the porch. Nancy, hugging her knees,
could not be seen from the sitting-room windows and, anyway, the blinds
had been shut to keep out the hot morning sun. Through their slats
Nancy heard Mrs. Eaton's effusive greetings.

"I might as well hear what the cat tells," Nancy concluded. The fate
of the proverbial eavesdropper did not alarm her in the least; she felt
the resignation, of a child that knows he faces punishment.

Mrs. Eaton spent several moments explaining, how often she "had had a
_mind_ to drop in for a little chat."

"But I am a _different_ woman with my Archie away! Cyrus says he don't
_know_ how I bear up so well. _You_ don't know, of course, a mother's
feelings!" Did Nancy imagine that she heard a rustling, as though Aunt
Sabrina had suddenly straightened in her chair? "And _I_ said to Cyrus
that _he_ don't even know a mother's feeling that's raised a boy right
from the _cradle_!"

Miss Sabrina inquired politely as to the last word of Archie, and, with
satisfied pride, the mother recounted Archie's description of the
difficulties that had confronted the Allied occupancy of the
Rhinelands. Archie's mother truly believed that Archie alone bore that
tremendous responsibility.

"And Archie and me are as _like_ as two peas," she added.

It was, of course, only a matter of a few moments before Mrs. Eaton led
up to the event of the day before. Nancy caught t