use it more?" said Julia, as Mrs. Torney shook down
the cooking stove with a violence that filled the air with the acrid
taste of ashes.

"Well, we do sometimes. I meant to clean it to-day and get it started
again," her aunt said. "I'm sure I don't know what we're going to do for
dinner, Ma," she added. "Here it is getting round to five, and Geraldine
hasn't come in. I don't know what on earth she does with
herself--weather like this!"

Mrs. Cox made no response; she was nodding in the twilight over the
little relaxed figure of the baby; a fat little white-clad leg rolled on
her knee as she rocked. A moment later Geraldine, a heavy, highly
coloured girl, much what her sister Marguerite had been ten years
before, burst in, cold, wet, and tired, with a strapful of wet books
which she flung on the table.

"My Lord, what do you keep this place so dark for, Ma!" said Geraldine.
"It's something awful! Hello, Julia!" She kissed her cousin, picked
Julia's big muff from a chair, and pressed the soft sables for a moment
to her face. "Well, the little old darling, she's asleep, isn't she?"
she murmured over the baby. "Say, Mamma," she went on more briskly,
"I've got company coming to-night--"

"_You_!" said Julia, smiling, and laying an affectionate hand on her young
cousin's shoulder, as she stood beside her. "Why, how old are you,
child?"

"I'm sixteen--nearly," Geraldine said stoutly. "Didn't you have beaus
when you were sixteen?"

"I suppose I did!" Julia admitted, smiling. "But you seem awfully
young!"

"I thought--maybe you'd go to the store for me," said Mrs. Torney.
Geraldine glared at her.

"Oh, my God! haven't the things come?" she demanded, in shrill disgust.
"I can't, Mamma, I'm sopping wet, and I've got to clean the parlour.
It's all over ashes, and mud, and the Lord knows what!"

"Well, I couldn't get out to-day, that's all there is to that," Mrs.
Torney defended herself sharply. "My back's been like it was on fire.
I've jest been resting all day. And when you go upstairs you won't find
a thing straightened, so don't get mad about that--I haven't been able
to do one thing! Regina's been real sick, too; she may have made the
beds--she was upstairs a while--"

"She didn't!" supplied Regina herself, speaking over her shoulder as she
lighted the gas. They all blinked in the harsh sudden light.

"Oh, Lord!" Geraldine was beginning, when Julia interrupted soothingly:

"See here, I have the car here; Chadwic