“Em!” Mrs. Torney would remove her glasses, she would address her sister in shocked tones.  “Here they’ve got a sour-cream salad dressing.  Did you ever hear of such a thing!”

“For heaven’s sake!” Mrs. Page would look up from her absorbed watching of Chester’s solitaire, drop her emaciated little head back against the waiting pillow.

“Try it some time, Aunt May, you could make anything taste good!” Julia might suggest.  But Mrs. Torney would shake a doubtful head and, with a muttered “Sour cream!” resume her glasses and her magazine.

Now she was tying a crisp apron over her blue cotton dress, and ready with a smiling explanation for Julia.

“I declare, Ju, I don’t know what’s got into my alarm.  I never woke up at all until quarter to eight o’clock!  Don’t start those dishes, lovey, there’s no hurry!”

“I was afraid that Mama’d had a bad night,” Julia said, smiling a good-morning from the sink.  “Sit. down, Aunt May, I’ll bring you your coffee!”

“No, Emeline had a real good night.  She was reading a while, about three, but she’s sound asleep now.”

“I lighted a fire in the dining-room,” said Chester, “just to take the chill off, if Em wants to go in there!”

“Then I’ll bring my sewing down, after the beds are made,” Geraldine said.  “You go to market if you want to, Julie; I’ll do your room.”

“Well,” Julia agreed, “perhaps I can get back before Mama wakes.  I’ll go up and see what Anna is doing.”

Regina and Chester presently went off to their work, Mrs. Torney and Geraldine fell upon the breakfast dishes, and Julia went upstairs.  She found the little Anna dreaming by a sunny window, one stocking on, one leg still bare, and her little petticoat hanging unbuttoned.

“Come, Infant, this won’t do!” Julia’s practised hands made quick work of the small girl’s dressing.  A stiff blue gingham garment went on over Anna’s head, the tumbled curls were subjugated by a blue ribbon.  When it was left to Anna merely to lace her shoes, Julia began to go about the room, humming as she busied herself with bureau and bed.  She presently paused at the mirror to pin on a wide hat, and her eye fell upon the oval-framed picture of Jim that she had carried away with her from the Pacific Avenue house.  It had been taken by some clever amateur; had always been a favourite with her.  She studied it dispassionately for a moment.

Jim had been taken in tennis clothes; his racket was still in his hand, his thin shirt opened to show the splendid line of throat and chin.  His thick hair was rumpled, the sunlight struck across his smiling face.  Julia’s memory could supply the twinkle in his eye; she could hear him call to Alan Gregory:  “For the Lord’s sake, cut this short, Greg!  It’s roasting out here!”

Beside this picture hung another, smaller, and also a snapshot.  This was of a man, too, a tall, thin, ungainly man, sitting on a roadside rock, with a battered old hat in his hand.  Behind him rose a sharp spur of rough mountainside, and so sharply did the ground fall away at his feet that far below him was a glimpse of the level surface of the Pacific.  Julia smiled at this picture, and the picture smiled back.