"I think the head of the firm has earned the right to arrive late if she wishes to," answered Mary Willing, glancing backward over her shoulder as she stood before the gas range. Her arms were bared to the elbows, for the waist she wore was made with short sleeves, in order to give her perfect freedom in her work. They were beautiful arms, strong, well-rounded and smooth as ivory.

"No, indeed, the head of the firm is a far cry from such indulgences, let me tell you. She has just heaps and loads to accomplish before she can arrive at such luxuries. But how goes the candy, Mary? Are you ready for me yet?"

"Not quite; but I shall be in just a few minutes. See, it is beginning to rope," was the reply as the candy-maker lifted a spoonful of the boiling syrup and let it run back into the kettle, the last drop falling from the spoon quickly forming into little threads, which wavered in the hot air rising from the range.

"Better begin beating it now, and let me pop in the nuts; then we'll pour it off," answered Constance, her practiced eye quick to see that another moment's boiling might undo a morning's work.

"Well, you're the boss! Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Constance, I didn't mean that! I mean you're-" and the girl paused in confusion, her face coloring a deeper red than the heat and her work had brought there.

"I'll make believe I didn't hear," answered Constance, a softer light filling her eyes in place of the pained one which for a little instant had crept into them, as a cloud can cast a momentary shadow upon a wind-swept, shining October sea.

"You have to make believe so many times," answered the girl, contritely, as she lifted the kettle from the range, and placing it upon the marble table, began to beat vigorously.

"Not nearly so often as I used to," answered Constance, emptying into the kettle a great dish of walnuts. Mary again beat vigorously with her big spoon, shaking her head doubtfully the while. Constance did not look at her, but, arming herself with a large knife, guided the candy into the little grooves which would shape it as it was poured upon the table from the tilted kettle. One end of the table had been blocked out like a checkerboard, each inch square lined for cutting the candy accurately.

"Now watch me do my stunt," she cried, standing with knife suspended over the fast chilling candy, and smiling up at the tall girl at her side.

"Do you forgive my-my-oh, the things I'm forever saying that must feel just like a file drawn over your teeth? If you only knew how hard it is to forget old ways and words and learn the better ones!"

"Do you see that little motto over there?" asked Constance, pointing with her poised knife to a card, one of several hanging upon the wall of the kitchen. The one toward which she pointed was in dark blue letters upon a white ground. It read: "Forget It!"

"Yes, that is just exactly what I am forever doing," was Mary's petulant reply. "If I didn't forget all the time I'd never _have_ to forget at all, and if that isn't the finest bit of Irish you've ever heard, please improve on it if you can."

The laughter which floated out through the open door greeted Mrs.

Carruth as she entered the packing room.

"May I share the joke?" she asked. "I'm sure it must be a good one, and rich as the odors floating out to tempt nose and palate. Cut it quickly, Honey; I know it must be chilled enough and it does smell so good. Mary, you are a master hand. M-mm-m! A veritable lump of delight, though still slightly warm," she ended as Constance dropped into her mouth a square of the nut fudge she had just cut from the great ma.s.s covering the table.

"Sit down, Mumsey, dear, and be good, consequently happy, while we work like beavers. How does it chill so rapidly? Quick! Mary, you cut at that end while I work at this. We've pounds and pounds to get done this morning if we are to fill all the orders."

For a few moments only the swift swish of the great knives as they cut the candy could be heard, now and again one girl or the other catching up a square upon the end of her knife and pausing just long enough to offer it to Mrs. Carruth. Presently all was cut, and as it lay cooling they set to work upon the next batch to be made, Mary cleaning the fudge kettle while Constance got out another for the walnut creams. Each kind of candy had its special cooking utensils, and no others were ever used for it. In a few minutes Constance had a second batch of candy bubbling upon her range, ready to turn over to Mary when she should have finished washing the kettles and other articles used in making the fudge.

"I came out to be useful; may I prove it?" asked Mrs. Carruth.

"Just sit and watch us work. That helps," answered Mary, as she relieved Constance.

"Will you be just a heap happier if I let you help wrap the fudge in paraffin paper?" asked Constance as she nestled her head for a moment in her mother's neck. "Eh? Will you? You busy body. Why can't you let us do all the work and so win all the glory? I suspect you're a terribly selfish mother; yes, I do. You needn't protest. You won't even let your girls, real own ones or adopted ones, make their sticky marks in this world in peace. You must come poking out here to buzz around in the hive and beg honey."

"I don't have to beg, for it is voluntarily given," laughed Mrs.

Carruth, kissing the soft cheek so close to her lips. "This kind I mean, and I know of none sweeter."

"Gross flattery! Now I _know_ you are scheming, so 'fess right off,"

cried Constance, whirling around to peer into her mother's face, and break into a merry laugh.

Mrs. Carruth pursed up her lips into a derisive pucker, and looked into the merry eyes of this sunshiny daughter.

"And if I am, what then?" she asked.

"I knew it!" was the triumphant retort. "But I dare not waste time bringing you to order now. Yes, you may help wrap. If anything will wheedle you into being good, letting you get busy will," ended Constance, turning to the table and deftly lifting the squares to the flat pans upon which they were to be carried to the packing room.

"Shoo along in there and get busy if you must, and while you are getting sticky enough to satisfy even yourself, you will tell me what is simmering. And mind, Mary can hear, too; so if it is too anarchistic she will come to the rescue. Oh, you can't do as you used to. Whyfor do I make candy by the pounds innumerable? Whyfor do I send it to tickle many palates? Whyfor do I take in dollars galore? All, _all_ to keep you from running off on some wild project whereby you shall earn as many more dollars to my utter undoing, lost glory and disgrace appalling to contemplate in a girl who has a tendency to grow fat-yes, fat!"

As she rattled on with her nonsense Constance worked busily getting out her paraffin paper, the necessary boxes and the dainty ribbons with which to tie them. Then seating herself beside her mother, who was already busy wrapping the fudge in its little squares of paraffin, she began packing the candy in its boxes.

"Now, what is it?" she asked, looking quizzically into the sweet, lovable face. Mrs. Carruth laughed a low, little laugh as she asked: "Why are you so sure that it is anything?"

"I know the signs. They have periodical simmerings, sort of seismic rumblings, so to speak," nodded Constance, working swiftly.

"I feel such a drone in a busy hive-" began Mrs. Carruth, then hesitated.

"I knew it! Mary, it has bubbled to the surface again," Constance called into the kitchen, where brisk footsteps testified to the occupant's industry.

"Shall I come to your rescue?" was the laughing question.

"Not yet; I'm still able to handle her, though there is no telling how soon she will get beyond me. I'll call you if I see signs," was called back. "Now go on, you incorrigible woman, and tell your long-suffering child what bee you have buzzing in your bonnet now. A brand new fall bonnet, too! It's outrageous to so misuse it after all the trouble I've been put to to induce you to indulge in it at all, and not sneak off to Madame Elsie with a lot of old finery to be made over into a creation warranted (by her) to deceive the keenest eye. Oh, I know your sly ways, and have to lie awake nights to think how to thwart them. You sly, wicked woman, to deprive me of my sorely needed rest and beauty sleep.

Why, I'm growing thin-"

"Alas for consistency!" interrupted Mrs. Carruth, derisively. "A moment ago you a.s.sured me you were growing fat. That scores me one, and ent.i.tles me to have my little say-so and hold my own against this conspiracy of-how many shall I say? Six. Yes, think of the outrageous odds brought against one weak woman."

"Weak! Weak! Why, it requires all the energy and shrewdness the combined force can bring to bear upon her to keep her within bounds, doesn't it, Mary?"

"And we don't always do it then," was the bantering reply.

"No, we do not," was the emphatic agreement. "Neither Mammy, Charles, Eleanor, Jean, Hadyn, you, nor I can feel sure that we have settled her vaulting ambitions at once and for all time. Is your candy ready for me yet?-Don't need me? Very well, I'll keep at this job, then; it's a co-operative job, and the hardest part of it is to hold down my rival.

There, those boxes are all packed, and now, Madame busy-body, I'm ready to listen. No, you are not going to tie bows while you talk, it gives you too great an advantage. Look right straight into my eyes, and while you confess your desires to transgress you shall keep up a sub-conscious train of thought along this line: 'This is my second daughter, Constance Blairsdale Carruth. She is past nineteen years of age. She weighs one hundred and eighteen pounds. She still possesses all her faculties unimpaired. Is endowed (I hope!) with the average degree of intelligence and common sense. She has never been ill a day in her life (whistle and knock wood when you think that), and she is taking mighty good care of the health she enjoys. She has been at work four years trans.m.u.ting syrups and sugars into dollars and cents, in which undertaking she has met with rather amazing success, and is going to meet with even greater.

Her plan is to make one dear, blessed little mother quite independent, and-please G.o.d-(these words were spoken in a mere whisper)-she will compa.s.s it. Now, are you going to let her do all this quite untrammeled, or are you going to worry her by suggesting all manner of wild plans for doing things for yourself?"

Constance had risen from her chair while speaking, and dropped upon her knees before her mother to clasp her arms about her waist and look into the face she loved best on earth. The girl's expression was half grave, half merry, though wholly sweet and winning.

Mrs. Carruth took the upraised face in both her hands, bent toward it, rested her lips upon the soft, silky hair, and said gently:

"Dear heart, dear heart; my dauntless little daughter. Yes, you _are_ doing all and far more than you have said, and that is exactly the reason I wish to contribute my share. Can't you see, dear, that I feel such a dull, dull drone in this busy hive?"

"Dull?-when you keep the hive in such running order that we never even suspect where the machinery which runs it is located. Dull?-when you keep our home as charming in every detail as it was when you had ample means at your command to conduct it. Dull?-when you are here every moment as its sweet and gracious head to make it such a home as few know in this northern world, where homes for the most part mean simply a roof to cover one, and under which food is served three times daily. Mother, can't you see and feel what you are doing for us girls? How you are surrounding us with an atmosphere so beautiful, so exceptional in these days of hurry and bustle that its influence must bide with us all our days and remain a dear memory all our lives? We may leave it sooner or later, other duties may call us away, but nothing, nothing can ever deprive us of all this-" Constance raised one arm to sweep it comprehensively over the room in which they sat and all-embracingly beyond. "So please let all rest as it is. Let Nonnie work away at college, and later-" here a merry twinkle filled the girl's eyes-"let her, well, let her take up the co-ed plan, if she likes. Things seem shaping that way if the signs can be trusted. Let me boil a way to fame and fortune. Let Jean-if Fate so decrees-though by the same token I've a notion she won't, follow in Nonnie's footsteps. Alack! Jean's energies do not point toward the campus of -- college. I mis...o...b..," and Constance smiled. Then, turning serious again, she resumed: "Will you promise me something?"

"Will you first listen to my little plan?" was her mother's counter question.

"Yes, I'll listen."

"You know how I delight in fancy work, dear, and there is such a field for embroidery and other kinds I do so well. The Woman's Exchange, you know."

"You may do all you want to-yards, pounds, dozens, heaps-however it is described-but you must do it for _our_ home, not other people's. I'll tell you what you may do, all against the coming climax, for it is coming, you mark my words: You begin right now and make dozens of the daintiest pieces of underwear imaginable-"

"Oh, Constance!" cried Mrs. Carruth, reproachfully, the softest rose creeping into her cheeks.

"Can't help it!" protested Constance. "I know that co-ed plan will develop. My heart! Do you think I'm blind as a bat? When a man bids a girl good-bye at a railway station and helps her on board the smoking-car instead of the Pullman, and neither of them knows the difference-well. You just wait till spring, my lady. It is a case of 'I smell a mouse, I feel him in the air,' etc., get busy, Mumsey, get busy.

The entire winter won't be too long, I tell you; for when that explosion takes place it will be with a bang, you mark my words."