did not like to say so, seeing
that she was his aunt. But couldn't they see the postmark? And didn't
every one know that she was visiting her sister in El Monte?

All the storms of the Winter were as a summer calm besides the gale the
valentines raised. Nobody talked about anything else. They would just
wait till The Woman came home in the Spring and then they would show
her that she could not insult her neighbours like that and her away
wintering in the South as if she were a millionairess!

The valentines was still the chief subject under discussion when The
Woman came back in April.

The roads were too muddy to take the car to town, so Trooper and Marthy
met her with the double buggy at Silver Creek, a nearby flag station,
and drove home without preparing her for her reception. As they came
down the muddy street of Orchard Glen with the brown fields smiling in
the sun and the first hint of Spring showing in the soft tender tint of
the willows beside the creek, The Woman declared that it was a sight
better than California any day, and she was mighty glad to get home and
see all her old friends, and take a holt of things again, for she
supposed that she ought to be thankful if the two of them hadn't let
everything go to the dogs while she was away.

They pulled up at the post office and The Woman hailed Mr. Holmes and
Tilly jovially.

"Hello in there!" she shouted. "Still at the old job, I do declare!"
Ordinarily the postmaster would have received her with the utmost
cordiality, but he could not forget that picture of himself as the old
Socrates of the village giving forth spurious wisdom, and he replied
very stiffly.

Tilly merely shook hands in a great hurry and fled to the back of the
store, and young Mr. Martin, who was there in a panic for a bottle of
emetic for the second youngest who had drunk some shoe polish, did not
even take the trouble to speak, but dashed past her without a word. He
wondered if she would be sorry for what she had done if one of his
children was to be poisoned. Marmaduke was at the store and Trooper
made him climb into the buggy and drive home to help welcome his aunt.
Duke was as cordial as ever and uproariously glad to see her, but he
was alone; throughout the village, averted faces and cold looks met her
on every side. Even Joanna, coming down the street, who had a
brilliant smile for Trooper, tossed her head and looked the other way,
when his aunt spoke.

"Now, what in