“Professor Trenton coming here in August!” cried Mrs. Everidge in dismay.  “Why, Horace, you never told me you had invited him!”

“My dear, I am telling you now.”

“But I meant to take Evadne up to our mountain camp in August.  I am sure the resinous air would make her strong.  I had my plans all laid.”

“‘The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley,’” said her husband suavely.  “Evadne’s mental strength cannot fail to be developed by intercourse with such a clever man.  We must not allow the culture of the body to occupy so prominent a place in our thoughts that we forget the mind, you know.”

“A fusty old Professor!” pouted Evadne.  “Oh, Uncle Horace, why didn’t you leave him among his tomes and his theories and let us be free to enjoy?”

“Mere sensual gratification, Evadne,” said Mr. Everidge, as he replenished his plate with some dainty pickings, “is not the true aim of life.  I consider it a high honor that the Professor should consent to devote a month of his valuable time to my edification, for he is getting to be quite a lion in the literary world.  You had better have your chamber prepared for his occupancy, Marthe.  As I remember him at college he had a fondness amounting almost to a craze for rooms with a western aspect.”

Joanna came in to announce the arrival of a visitor whom Evadne had already learned to dread on account of her continual depression.

“Oh, Aunt Marthe!” she exclaimed, “must you waste this beautiful afternoon listening to her dolorosities.  I wanted you to go for a drive!”

“You go, dearie, and take Penelope Riggs.  It will be a treat to her and you ought to be out in the open air as much as possible.”

Evadne went out on the veranda.  Through the open window she could hear the visitor’s ceaseless monotone of complaint mingled with the soft notes of Mrs. Everidge’s cheery sympathy.  “Oh, dearest,” she murmured, “if you had seen this beautiful life, you would have known that there is no sham in the religion of Jesus!”

She waited long, in the hope that Mrs. Everidge would be able to accompany her, then she started for the Eggs cottage.  She found the old lady alone.  “Where is Penelope, Mrs. Riggs?”

“Oh, skykin’ round ez usual,” was the peevish response.  “It’s church work this time.  When I wuz young, folks got along ’thout sech an everlastin’ sight uv meetins, but nowadays there’s Convenshuns, an’ Auxils an’ Committees, an’ the land knows what, till a body’s clean distracted.  Fer my part I hate ter see wimmen a’ wallerin’ round in the mud till it takes ’em the best part uv the next day ter git their skirts clean.”

“But there is no mud now, Mrs. Riggs,” laughed Evadne.

“Land alive, child!  There will be sometime.  In my day folks used ter stay ter hum an’ mind their childern, but now they’ve all took ter soarin’ an’ it don’t matter how many ends they leave flyin’ loose behind ’era.”