ccompanies the transition from
emotional intensity down to an everyday level. In Lydia's voice there
was even a little flatness as she answered, "Oh, he put me in the hack
and went off to see about business. I heard him 'phoning something to
somebody about a suit. We got through the customs sooner than we thought
we could, you see, and caught an earlier train."

Mrs. Emery turned her adoring gaze from Lydia's slim beauty and looked
inquiringly at her elder daughter. Mrs. Mortimer understood, and nodded.

"What are you two making faces about?" Lydia turned in time to catch the
interchange of glances.

Mrs. Emery hesitated. Marietta spoke with a crisp straightforwardness
which served as well in this case as nonchalance for keeping her remark
without undue significance. "We were just wondering if now wasn't a good
time to show you what Paul Hollister did for your welcome home. He
couldn't be here himself, so he sent those." She nodded toward the
bouquet.

As Lydia turned toward the flowers her two elders fixed her with the
unscrupulously scrutinizing gaze of blood-relations; but their
microscopic survey showed them nothing in the girl's face, already
flushed and excited by her home-coming, beyond a sudden amused surprise
at the grotesque size of the tribute.

"Why, for mercy's sake! Did you ever see such monsters! They are as big
as my head! Look!" She whirled her hat from the pretty disorder of her
brown hair and poised it on the topmost of the great flowers, stepping
back to see the effect and laughing, "They don't look any more like
roses, do they?" she added, turning to her mother. Mrs. Emery's answer
rose so spontaneously to her lips that she was not aware that she was
echoing Marietta. "Good gracious, no; of course not. They cost a dollar
and a half apiece."

Lydia neither assented to nor dissented from this apothegm. It started
another train of thought in her mind. "As much as all that! Why, Paul
oughtn't to be so extravagant! He can't afford it, and I should have
liked something else just as--"

Her sister broke in with an ample gesture of negation. "You don't know
Paul. If he goes on the way he's started--he's district sales manager
for southern Ohio already."

Lydia paid to this information the passing tribute of a moment's
uncomprehending surprise. "Think of that! The last time Paul told me
about himself he was working day and night in Schenectady, learning the
business, and getting--oh, I don't know--