until her stretch of side garden looked like
a picture by Kate Greenaway.

When it was all done, midsummer was upon them, but she and Wolf thought
that there had never been anything so complete and so charming in all
the world. The striped awnings that threw clean shadows upon the clipped
grass; the tea table under the blue-green leaves of an old apple tree;
the glass doors that opened upon orderly, white-wainscoted rooms full of
shining dark surfaces and flowered chintzes and gleaming glass bowls of
real flowers; the smallness and completeness and prettiness of
everything filled them both with utter satisfaction.

Norma played at housekeeping like a little girl in a doll's house. She
had a rosy little Finnish maid who enjoyed it all almost as much as she
did, and their adventures in hospitality were a constant amusement and
delight. On Saturdays, when Rose and Harry and Aunt Kate usually
arrived, Wolf could hardly believe that all this ideal beauty and
pleasure was his to share.

The girls would pose and photograph the baby tirelessly, laughing as he
toppled and protested, and kissing the fat legs that showed between his
pink romper and his pink socks. They would pack picnic lunches, rushing
to and fro breathlessly with thermos bottles and extra wraps for Miggs,
as Harry Junior was usually called. Once or twice they cleaned the car,
with tremendous splashing and spattering, assuming Wolf's old overalls
for the operation, and retreating with shrieks into the kitchen whenever
the sound of an approaching motor-car penetrated into their quiet road.
Mrs. Sheridan characterized them variously as "Wild Indians", "Ay-rabs",
and "poor innocents" but her heart was so filled with joy and gratitude
for the turn of events that had brought all these miracles about, that
no nonsense and no noise seemed to her really extravagant.

It was an exceptionally pleasant community into which the young
Sheridans had chanced to move, and they might have had much more
neighbourly life than they chose to take. There were about them
beginners of all sorts: writers and artists and newspaper men, whose
little cars, and little maids, and great ambitions would have formed a
strong bond of sympathy in time. But Wolf and Norma saw them only
occasionally, when a Sunday supper at the country club or a
Saturday-night dance supplied them with a pleasant stimulating sense of
being liked and welcomed, or when general greetings on the eight-o'clock
train