after the ball is over," she said.

Mrs. Buck had entered only half-heartedly into the plan of going to
the ball, and had agreed to go only because Judith had pleaded so
earnestly with her. Her best and only black silk must be taken out and
sunned and aired and pressed.

"I declare, I've had it so long the styles have caught up with it
again," she exclaimed.

"Well, I wish I could say the same for my white muslin," sighed
Judith. "I've a great mind to wear it hind part before, to make a
little change in it. Anyhow, I intend to have just as good a time in
it as though it were white chiffon, embroidered in gold beads. My
white pumps aren't so bad looking. I'll take time to-morrow to shampoo
my hair. Do you know, Mumsy, Cousin Ann Peyton's wig is just the color
of my hair. Poor old lady! Pity she can't lose it!"

It was Thursday night. The day's work was over, the last dish from the
motormen's supper washed and put away and Mrs. Buck and her daughter
were having a quiet chat, seated on the side porch. It was a pleasant
spot, homelike and comfortable. It was on this porch that the summer
activities of the farm were carried on. Here they prepared fruit for
preserving and even preserved, as a kerosene stove behind a screen in
the corner gave evidence. Here they churned, in a yellow cradle churn,
and worked the butter.

"It saves the house if you can do most of your work in the open," Mrs.
Buck had said.

Judith had stretched a hammock across the corner of the porch, and now
she was allowing herself to relax for awhile before going to bed. She
pushed herself gently to and fro with one slender foot on the porch
floor, and looked out dreamily over the fields flooded with
moonlight--fields bought by her grandfather Knight from her
grandfather Buck, inherited by him from his father, who had inherited
from his father. Each generation had done what it could to impoverish
the land and never to improve it. Now it was up to her, nothing but a
slip of a girl nineteen years old, to buy guano and bring the land
back to its original value.

"Ho, hum! If Grandfather Buck hadn't wasted so much and Grandfather
Knight hadn't saved so much I could put my earnings in a new georgette
dress to wear to the old men's debut ball," she sighed.

A few vehicles passed the house--now an old-fashioned buggy, now a
stylish touring car--each one leaving a trailing cloud of limestone
dust.

"Listen, Judith, I heard the gate click."

"Nothing b