opened her eyes wide at the absurdity of the suggestion. “You do, don’t you? You must! Everybody does. Just wait a minute till I get spoons.”

“I don’t think I quite know how to do it,” said Elliott.

The next minute a teaspoon was thrust 44 into her hand. “Didn’t you ever?” Priscilla’s voice was both aghast and pitying. “It wastes a lot, not scraping kettles. Good as candy, too. Here, you begin.” She pushed a preserving-kettle forward hospitably.

Elliott hesitated.

“I’ll show you.” The small hand shot in, scraped vigorously for a minute, and withdrew, the spoon heaped with ruddy jelly. “There! Mother didn’t leave as much as usual, though. I ’spect it’s ’cause sugar’s so scarce. She thought she must put it all into the glasses. But there’s always something you can scrape up.”

“It is delicious,” said Elliott, graciously; “and what a lovely color!”

Priscilla beamed. “You may have two scrapes to my one, because you have so much time to make up.”

“You generous little soul! I couldn’t 45 think of doing that. We will take our ‘scrapes’ together.”

Priscilla teetered a little on her toes. “I like you,” she said. “I like you a whole lot. I’d hug you if my hands weren’t sticky. Scraping kettles makes you awful sticky. You make me think of a princess, too. You’re so bee-yeautiful to look at. Maybe that isn’t polite to say. Mother says it isn’t always nice to speak right out all you think.”

The dimples twinkled in Elliott’s cheeks. “When you think things like that, it is polite enough.” In the direct rays of Priscilla’s shining admiration she began to feel like her normal, petted self once more. Complacently she followed the little girl into the main kitchen. It was a long, low, sunny room with a group of three windows at each end, through which the morning breeze pushed coolly. Between the windows opened many doors. At one side 46 stood a range, all shining nickel and cleanly black. Opposite the range, at a gleaming white sink, Aunt Jessica was busying herself with many pans. At an immaculately scoured table Laura was pouring peas into glass jars. On the walls was a blue-and-white paper; even the woodwork was white.

“I didn’t know a kitchen,” Elliott spoke impulsively, “could be so pretty.”

“This is our work-room,” said her aunt. “We think the place where we work ought to be the prettiest room in the house. White paint requires more frequent scrubbing than colored paint; but the girls say they don’t mind, since it keeps our spirits smiling. Would you like to help dry these pans? You will find towels on that line behind the stove.”

Elliott brought the dish-towels, and proceeded to forget her own surprise at the request in the interest of Aunt Jessica’s talk. Mrs. Cameron had a lovely 47 voice; the girl did not remember ever having heard a more beautiful voice, and it was used with a cultured ease that suddenly reminded Elliott of an almost forgotten remark once made in her hearing by Stannard’s mother. “It is a sin and shame,” Aunt Margaret had said, “to bury a woman like Jessica Cameron on a farm. What possessed her to let Robert take her there in the first place is beyond my comprehension. Granting that first mistake, why she has let him stay all these years is another enigma. Robert is all very well, but Jessica! I would defy any one to produce the situation anywhere that Jessica wouldn’t be equal to.”

That had been a good deal for Aunt Margaret to say. Elliott had realized it at the time and wondered a little; now she understood the words, or thought she did. Why, even drying milk-pans took on a certain distinction when it was done in Aunt Jessica’s presence!

Then Aunt Jessica said something that really did surprise her young guest. She had been watching the girl closely, quite without Elliott’s knowledge.

“Perhaps you would like this for your own special part of the work,” she said pleasantly. “We each have our little chores, you know. I couldn’t let every girl attempt the milk things, but you are so careful and thorough that I haven’t the least hesitation about giving them to you. Now I am going to wash the separator. Watch me, and then you will know just what to do.”

The words left Elliott gasping. Wash the separator, all by herself, every day—or was it twice a day?—for as long as she stayed here! And pans—all these pans? What was a separator, anyway? She wished flatly to refuse, but the words stuck in her throat. There was something about Aunt Jessica that you couldn’t say no to. Aunt Jessica so palpably expected you to 49 be delighted. She was discriminating, too. She had recognized at once that Elliott was not an ordinary girl. But—but—

It was all so disconcerting that self-possessed Elliott stammered. She stammered from pure surprise and chagrin and a confusing mixture of emotions, but what she stammered was in answer to Aunt Jessica’s tone and extracted from her by the force of Aunt Jessica’s personality. The words came out in spite of herself.

“Oh—oh, thank you,” she said, a bit blankly. Then she blushed with confusion. How awkward she had been. Oughtn’t Aunt Jessica to have thanked her?

If Aunt Jessica noticed either the confusion or the blankness, she gave no sign.

“That will be fine!” she said heartily. “I saw by the way you handled those pans that I could depend on you.”

Insensibly Elliott’s chin lifted. She regarded 50 the pans with new interest. “Of course,” she assented, “one has to be particular.”

“Very particular,” said Aunt Jessica, and her dark eyes smiled on the girl.

The words, as she spoke them, sounded like a compliment. It mightn’t be so bad, Elliott reflected, to wash milk-pans every morning. And in Rome you do as the Romans do. She watched closely while Aunt Jessica washed the separator. She could easily do that, she was sure. It did not seem to require any unusual skill or strength or brain-power.

“It is not hard work,” said Aunt Jessica, pleasantly. “But so many girls aren’t dependable. I couldn’t count on them to make everything clean. Sometimes I think just plain dependableness is the most delightful trait in the world. It’s so rare, you know.”

Elliott opened her eyes wide. She had been accustomed to hear charm and wit 51 and vivacity spoken of in those terms, but dependableness? It had always seemed such a homely, commonplace thing, not worth mentioning. And here was Aunt Jessica talking of it as of a crown jewel! Right down in her heart at that minute Elliott vowed that the separator should always be clean.

The separator, however, must not commit her indiscriminately, she saw that clearly. Perhaps in fact, it would save her. Hadn’t Aunt Jessica said each had her own tasks? Ergo, you let others alone. But she had an uncomfortable feeling that this reasoning might prove false in practice; in this household a good many tasks seemed to be pooled. How about them?

And then Laura looked up from her jars and said the oddest thing yet in all this morning of odd sayings: “Oh, Mother, mayn’t we take our dinner out? It is such a perfectly beautiful day!” As though a 52 beautiful day had anything to do with where you ate your dinner!

But Aunt Jessica, without the least surprise in her voice, responded promptly: “Why, yes! We have three hours free now, and it seems a crime to stay in the house.”

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