At holiday time, Nell and her husband came for a visit. Nell immediately proceeded to take the reins of government. She was a big, good-looking woman, younger than Myra. She had a large, well-modeled face with bloomy cheeks, golden brown eyes, fringed thick as daisies, and crisply undulating waves of dark hair. She disposed of their greetings in short order, retired to her old room to change into serviceable work things, and issued her ultimatum.

"Now don't go to any fuss, Myry. John and me ain't company. Treat us like the family. You've changed the roaster, ain't you, Myry? This ain't near so good a place for it. I've brought you one of my hens, Mother--all dressed and ready. We'll have it for dinner. Now Myry, don't you go to getting out a white table-cloth. Get one of them red-checkered ones. I s'pose those are your weddin' dishes--well, leave 'em be, now you got them down. But we won't use 'em common--the old white ones is plenty good enough. Folks that use their best every day has got no best.

You might get the potatoes on now, Myry."

"Let me finish settin' the table, Myry," pleaded old Mrs. Bray. A moment later there was a crash, "Oh, Nellie! Oh, Myry! I didn't go to do it! My arm breshed it."

"Marvin's souvenir pitcher his Aunt Mat give him one Fair time! It must a' be'n fifteen year old!"

"I didn't go to do it!" quavered old Mrs. Bray.

"Who ever heard of such a thing? Of course you didn't do no such crazy thing! But that don't save its being broke. Here--let me sweep it up."

"Don't you sweep them pieces up!" shrilled her mother.

This voice of high command on the part of her little old subservient mother gave Nell pause. She stood, dust-pan in hand, looking down upon that stiffly stooping figure garnering into her gathered ap.r.o.n a little heap of splintered china.

"Mother must be getting childish," Nell said to Myra, when old Mrs. Bray had trotted stiffly away with her spoils.

Myra did not reply. She hoped Nell would not discover that ravished shelf of prized old china.

"Well--Nell got ye in hand?" inquired Nell's husband, John Peebles, at dinner. The good-natured wink which accompanied the words, the hearty voice and friendly manner, robbed the words of offense. They seemed rather a humorous gibe directed against Nell. These two got along excellently well. There was about John Peebles an effect of tender strength, re-a.s.suring and at the same time illuminating--responsive to weakness, but adamant to imposition. Even the managerial Nell had not succeeded in piercing that armored side of him--his 'thus far and no further.'"

"Aw--you!" said Nell, adoringly.

"I bet Nell's met her boss!" grinned Marvin. "He don't go so fur as to beat ye, does he, Nell?"

"Smarty!" returned Nell. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners. She had met her match, and she knew it and gloried in it. But she didn't want any sa.s.s from the family.

She had none. They submitted without demur. The dish-pan sunned in the old place. The towels dried along a line of her own stretching. "John and me don't mean to make you any work," she a.s.sured them. They made no work. It seemed there had never been so much leisure.

"Myry," inquired Nell, "where's that other gla.s.s that goes with George's wife's lemonade-set?"

"Oh, it must be 'round som'ers," Myra returned vaguely.

"Round som'ers! Why ain't they all together?" Nell prodded in further search.

"Where's my pink gilt cup and saucer Aunt Em gimme one Christmas?"

"Ain't it there?" ventured Myra, with a cowardly shrinking from confession, not so much on her own account as for old Mrs. Bray. There was the majolica pickle-dish, the gilt, beflowered lemonade-gla.s.s, Abbie Carter's cracker-jar, certain of the fragile souvenir pin-trays stacked in a corner of the shelf.

"Here's Marvin's blue one. It's funny where them things can be. I always kept them here together, on this shelf."

"They're som'ers," Myra repeated vaguely.

Old Mrs. Bray had sat throughout this conversation, making b.u.t.tonholes in a new gray percale. Once, when Nell was back at the sink, she reached out a wavering, fat old arm, and gave Myra's ap.r.o.n-string a tug, as a bad child pulls a cat's tail in a sort of impish humor. Her eyes, blue and shining as a child's saucer, looked very wise. A little laugh clucked in her throat.

"Mother--you feel chilly? You want to keep out of drafts," cautioned Nellie from the sink.

"Never felt more chipper!" averred old Mrs. Bray.

She had not spent an afternoon in her room since Nell's arrival. To-day, however, after dinner, she withdrew with an air of intending to remain there for some time. She took her b.u.t.tonholes with her. It was likely that Nell could not content herself until she had searched every cupboard and pantry for the missing treasure.

"I declare--it is the beatin'est thing! Whatever can have become of them?" she apprized Myra. "You find much time to read, Myry?"

Myra found time to read her woman's magazine from cover to cover, in the course of the month. Some things she read more than once--those frankly impossible stories in which the heroines were always beautiful and always loved. Myra had never known a heroine; the women of her acquaintance were neither beautiful nor adored; and were probably quite comfortably unaware of this lack.

"I'm getting notional," Myra accused herself fearfully. The Family Doctor Book, a learned and ancient tome, confirmed these suspicions. It treated of this, and related matters, with a large a.s.surance, like a trusty confidant.

"Funny how long Mother stays in her room!" wondered Nell.

"Mebbe she's fell asleep. Old people need all the sleep they can get.

It's mostly so broken."

"I'm agoing to see!" deposed Nell.

Myra had never invaded that withdrawn privacy. But Nell, with her grenadier step, went swiftly and threw open the door.

"What on earth! Mother!"

Old Mrs. Bray's voice streamed quavering out, "Oh, Nellie! Don't scold me! Myry!--"

Somehow Myra was there--past the affronted Nell in the door. In the instant silence they made a strange tableau.

Old Mrs. Bray in her fine gray-and-lavender gown was seated before her little wash-hand-stand. The floral pitcher in its floral bowl had been set to one side on the floor. What covered the towel-protected top of the stand, was Nellie's looted treasure.

There were the fragments of the pink cup and saucer; the leaf-green and brown majolica bits that had been the pickle-dish; the iridescent curved sides of George's wife's lemonade-gla.s.s; Aunt Em's shattered souvenir pitcher; Abbie Carter's cracker-jar with its smashed wheat-heads. Myra only looked bewilderedly; but on Nell's gaping face apprehension succeeded stupefaction and dissolved in its turn into a great br.i.m.m.i.n.g tenderness.

"Scold you, Mother? Oh, Mother--what must you think me! (Oh, poor Mother--poor Mother--she's gone daft!)"

"I always admired pretty broken bits of chiny," old Mrs. Bray confessed.

"But the pitcher was a accident--reely it was, Nellie. I never went to let that fall. My arm breshed it. But the sa.s.ser and the pickle-dish and George's wife's lemonade-gla.s.s and Abbie Carter's cracker-jar--I done them apurpose. And I can't say I regret the pitcher, nuther."

"Yes, Mother! Yes, yes! It's all right; I understand. (Myry, don't you leave her! I thought she was gettin' childish, but Oh--to think--I'll have John go for Doc Bradley right away. Let 'er amuse herself--but don't you leave her alone a minute! Poor Mother! Poor old Mother!

Aplayin' with broken chiny dishes!)"

"What's Nell awhisperin' to ye?" inquired old Mrs. Bray, sharply.

"There's nothin' to whisper about as I know. Did ever you see anything purtier than this pink chiny piece, Myry? It broke so clean, and curved as a petal. And this here piece of George's wife's lemonade-gla.s.s--it's handsome as a brooch. See how the flower come out! Why, Myry, I've set here and fairly eat off these dishes!"

"Yes, Mother. But sha'n't we put them up now! Some one might drop in--Nell bein' here."

She could not bear that Marvin and John and the doctor should see this pitiful child's play.

Old Mrs. Bray a.s.sented with the utmost good nature. She drew up a box of lacquer and proceeded to lay her china service carefully and dextrously away. She set the box quite openly along the shelf beside her bonnet-box and the snug, little brown round pasteboard roll that held her little old round m.u.f.f. Presently they heard steps in the sitting-room. Some one had dropped in--but it was only Marvin and John and old Doc Bradley.

Marvin's face held a look of scared apprehension; John's withheld judgment; Nell was frankly red-eyed. She had been walking fiercely back and forth in the yard unable to face again that piteous picture.

The only unclouded faces there were Doc Bradley's and old Mrs. Bray's.

She gave him a shrewd look. He returned it in kind. "So--o--" said old Mrs. Bray, noting their various scrutiny. There was even an effect of state about her as she settled herself in her special rocker. But she said, quite simply and conversationally,