Part 21

"Just like that."

"Yes, I've heard it did," admitted Carey; "but I never quite believed it could have been as bad as that."

"Who planned it all?" the doctor asked, getting possession of the photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny.

"My little home-maker."

"Jove--are there any more like her?"

"They're pretty rare, I understand. Juliet has one in training--one with a good deal of native capacity, I should judge."

"Let me know when her graduation day approaches," remarked the doctor.

* * * * *

When he fell asleep that night in the dainty guest-room Barnes was wondering whether Mrs. Robeson got her own breakfasts, and hoping that she certainly did not, at least when guests were in the house. He was down half an hour earlier than necessary, and to his great satisfaction found a slender figure brushing up ashes and setting the fireplace in order for the morning fire. As he begged leave to help he noted the satin smoothness of Miss Redding's heavy black hair and the trim perfection of her attire. She reminded him of his hospital nurses in their immaculate blue and white. When he saw the mistress of the house and found her similarly dressed a certain skepticism grew in his mind.

When he went out to breakfast he murmured in Anthony's ear: "Just tell me, old fellow--to satisfy the curiosity of a bachelor--do these girls of your household always look like this in the early morning? I know it's mean--but you will know how to evade me if I'm too impertinent----"

Anthony glanced from Juliet, resembling a pink carnation in her wash frock--February though it was--to Rachel Redding in dark blue and white, and smiled mischievously. "Mrs. Robeson--and Miss Redding--you are challenged," he announced. "Here's a fine old chump who has an awful suspicion that maybe when there are no guests you come down in calico wrappers with day-before-yesterday's aprons on."

Juliet gave the doctor a glance which made him pretend to shrink behind Carey for protection. "Will you please answer him, Tony?" she said.

"On my word and honour, Roger Barnes, then," said Anthony proudly, "they always look like this."

When the doctor left he was weighing carefully in his mind an urgent problem: After waiting six months before making his first visit at the Robesons, how soon could he decently come again?

XIV.--STRAWBERRIES

"Here are yer strawberries, ma'm."

Juliet, alone in her little kitchen, ran to the door in dismay. She looked down at a freckle-faced boy carrying a big basket filled with strawberry-boxes.

"But my order was for next Wednesday," she said.

"Well, Pa said he cal'lated you'd ruther have 'em when they was at the best, an' that's now. This hot weather's a dryin' 'em up. May not be any good ones by Wednesday."

Every housekeeper knows that if there is one thing particularly liable to happen it is the arrival of fruit for preserving at the most inopportune moment of the week. It matters little what the excuse of the sender may be--there is always a sufficient reason why the original date set by the buyer has been ignored. In this case the strawberries had been engaged from a neighbour, and Juliet understood at once that she must not refuse to take them.

She stood looking at the rows of baskets upon the table, when the boy had placed them there and gone whistling away. She was in the midst of a flurry of work. It was Saturday, and she was cooking and baking, putting together various dishes to be used upon the morrow. Mr. Horatio Marcy had lately returned from abroad. He and Mrs. Dingley were to spend the coming Sabbath with Juliet and Anthony--the first occasion on which Juliet's father should be entertained in the house. It was an event of importance, and his daughter meant to show him several things concerning her fitness for her present position.

Rachel Redding was not available upon this Saturday morning. Her mother had been taken seriously ill the night before, and Rachel had sent word that she could not leave her. Juliet had not minded much, although it was a day when Rachel's help would have been especially acceptable. As it was, she had reached a point where her housewifely marshalling of the day's work was at a critical stage. A cake had been put into the oven. A large bowl of soup stock had been brought from a cool retreat to have the smooth coating of fat removed from its surface. Various other dishes, in process of construction, awaited the skilled touch of the cook.

"I shall have to do them, I suppose," said Mrs. Robeson to herself, regarding the strawberries with a disapproving eye. "But why they had to come to-day----"

She went at the strawberries, wishing she had ordered less. They were fine berries--on top; by degrees, as the boxes lowered, they became less fine. It seemed desirable to separate the superior from the inferior and treat them differently. Only the best would do for the delectable preserve which was to go into glasses and be served on special occasions; the others could be made into jam less attractive to the eye if hardly less acceptable to the palate. Juliet was obliged to put down her berry-boxes every fifth minute to attend to one or other of the various saucepans and double-boilers upon the little range. Her cheeks grew flushed, for the day was hot and the kitchen hotter. It must be admitted that her occasional glance out over the green fields and the woods beyond was a longing one.

The better selection of the berries went into the clear syrup in the preserving-kettle. Juliet flew to get her glass pots ready. She stopped to stir something in a saucepan. She thrust some eggs into the small ice-chest to cool them for the salad dressing soon to be made. She kept one eye on the clock, for the strawberry preserve had to be timed to a minute--ten, no more, no less. It was a strenuous hour.

As she dipped up the fourth ladleful of crimson richness--translucent as a church window--and filled the waiting jar, a peculiar pungent odour drifted across the fragrance of the strawberries. Juliet dropped her ladle and pulled open the oven door.

The delicate cake which she had compounded with especial care because it was Mrs. Dingley's favourite, lay a blackened ruin. Some of it had run over upon the oven bottom and become a mass of cinders. Juliet jerked the cake-tin out into the daylight and shut the oven door with a slam.

It was at this unpropitious moment that a figure appeared in the doorway--a tall, slim figure, in crisp, cool, white linen. A charming white hat surmounted Mrs. Wayne Carey's carefully ordered hair, a white parasol in her hands completed a particularly chaste and appropriate morning toilette for a young woman who had nothing to do with kitchens.