he joy of dressing and taking out a daughter of
that stamp--of having her at home with one, to make the tea, and to
chat with, and to lean on! Old Keziah came to the door--Keziah sleek
and placid, like the family she served--delighted to welcome the
distinguished traveller, but still more delighted to brag about the
last Breen baby.

"A lovely boy, without spot or blemish," said Keziah, three times over.
"And that makes eleven, and not one too many. And Miss Rose doing fine,
thank you. I'll go and prepare her for the surprise, so it don't upset
her."

Constance, quite a grown young lady, met her aunt on the stairs;
Kathleen and Lucy rose from the piano in the drawing-room, where they
had been entertaining their mother at a safe distance with their
latest-learned "pieces"; they too had to be greeted and kissed--and
sweeter flesh to kiss no lips could ask for. "My husband may be a
draper," Rose had often said, "but I'll trouble you to show me a duke
with a handsomer family."

Mentally, Deb compared the cool, flower-petal cheeks of her Breen
nieces with her Goldsworthy nephew's mouth, covering those unpleasant
teeth. It would have been fairer to compare him with her Breen nephews,
but there the contrast would have been nearly as great. John, at
business with his father, and Pennycuick, learning station management
with the Simpsons at Bundaboo, had the fresh and cleanly appearance of
all Rose's children; in physical matters they were as clean as they
looked. Bob did not look unclean, but with all his excessive smartness,
he looked unfresh. That look, and the thing it meant, were his father's
legacy to him.

At last Deb reached her sister's room. It was another addition to the
ever-growing house, and marked, like each former one, the ever-growing
prosperity of the shop supporting it. The fastidious travelled eye
appraised the rich rugs and hangings, the massive "suite", the
delicately-furnished bed, and took in the general air of warm luxury
and unstinted comfort, even before it fell upon Rose herself--Rose, fat
and fair, and the picture of content, sitting in the softest of
arm-chairs, and the smartest of gowns and slippers, by the brightest of
wood fires, with a tableful of new novels and magazines on one side of
her, and a frilly cradle on the other.

"My husband may be a draper," she had remarked at various times, "but
he does give me a good home."

Deb, so long homeless amid her wealth, conceded at this moment,