Julia’s whole attitude, during this discussion of her recent culinary experiments, was indicative of the change that was slowly taking place in her point of view.  The Careys had a large sense of humor, from mother down as far as Peter, who was still in the tadpole stage of it.  They chaffed one another on all occasions, for the most part courteously and with entire good nature.  Leigh Hunt speaks of the anxiety of certain persons to keep their minds quiet lest any motion be clumsy, and Julia’s concern had been of this variety; but four or five months spent in a household where mental operations, if not deep, were incredibly quick, had made her a little more elastic.  Mother Carey had always said that if Julia had any sense of humor she would discover for herself what a solemn prig she was, and mend her ways, and it seemed as if this might be true in course of time.

“What’ll we do with all the milk?” now demanded Peter, who had carried it all the way from the Pophams’, and to whom it appeared therefore of exaggerated importance.

“Angel boy!” cried Nancy, embracing him.  “The only practical member of the family!  What wouldst thou suggest?”

“Drink it,” was the terse reply.

“And so’t shall be, my liege!  Fetch the beaker, lackey,” identifying Cyril with a royal gesture.  “Also crystal water from the well, which by the command of our Cousin Ann will speedily flow in a pipe within the castle walls.  There are healths to be drunk this day when we assemble under the Hamilton maple, and first and most loyally the health of our American Consul at Breslau, Germany!”

XXV

“FOLLOWING THE GLEAM”

If the summer months had brought many changes to the dwellers in the Yellow House and the House of Lords, the autumn was responsible for many more.  Cousin Ann’s improvements were set in motion and were promised to be in full force before cold weather set in, and the fall term at Beulah Academy had opened with six new, unexpected, and interesting students.  Happily for the Careys and happily for Beulah, the old principal, a faithful but uninspired teacher, had been called to Massachusetts to fill a higher position; and only a few days before the beginning of the term, a young college man, Ralph Thurston, fresh from Bowdoin and needing experience, applied for and received the appointment.  The thrill of rapture that ran like an electric current through the persons of the feminine students when they beheld Ralph Thurston for the first time,—­dignified, scholarly, unmistakably the gentleman,—­beheld him mount the platform in the assembly room, and knew him for their own, this can better be imagined than described!  He was handsome, he was young, he had enough hair (which their principals seldom had possessed), he did not wear spectacles, he had a pleasing voice, and a manner of speaking that sent tremors of delight up and down a thirteen-year-old spine.