“It makes you think of delicious words,” said Julia, as Richie’s rusty white mare plodded up and up the mountain road.  “Ozone—­and aromatic—­and exhilarating!  In town it was a little oppressive to-day—­Anna and I were quite wilted!”

“You don’t look wilted!” Richie smiled at his goddaughter, who was in her mother’s arms.  “Look, Ju—­there’s columbine!  Loads of it up near my place!” “And the wild currant, with that delicious pungent smell!” sighed Julia blissfully.  “What’s new with you, Richie?” she asked presently.

“Oh, nothing much!  Cable from Bab yesterday, but you must have had one, too?”

“Yes, I did.  A third boy!” Julia laughed.  “Poor Bab—­when she wanted a girl so badly!”

“I suppose she did,” grinned Richard.

“Oh, of course she did!  Who wouldn’t?” Julia hugged her own girl.  “And isn’t it glorious about Keith?” she added, with sudden enthusiasm.

“Is it?  I suppose it is,” Richie said.  “But then those old guys in Germany called him a genius long before New York did, and you girls didn’t make so much fuss!”

“Oh, but Richie, there’s so much money in this American tour; three concerts in New York alone, think of it!” Julia protested eagerly.  “And Sally’s letter sounded so gay; they were having a perfectly glorious time.  I hope they come to San Francisco!”

“Well, she deserves it,” Richie observed, flicking the rusty mare with a whip she superbly ignored.  “Sally’s had a pretty rotten time of it for seven or eight years—­paying his lesson bills when she didn’t have enough to eat or shoes to wear—­and losing the baby—–­”

“I don’t believe all that meant as much to Sally as you think,” Julia said sagely.  “Her entire heart was set upon Keith’s success, and that has come along pretty steadily.  Her letter to me about the baby wasn’t the sort I should have written; indeed, I couldn’t have written at all!  And then that was four years ago, Richie, and four years is a long time!”

“It is!” Richie agreed.  “Keith’s about all the baby she’ll ever want; those fellows take an awful lot of spoiling.  But I get more pleasure from Mother’s and Dad’s pleasure than for Sally herself,” he added.  “Mother saves up newspaper accounts, and has this translated from the German and that from the French—­it’s sort of pathetic to see!  Dad and Janey are in New York now; something was said last night about their going over to see Bab.”

“Ted and your mother are alone, then?  How’s Ted?”

“Oh, driving Mother crazy, as usual.  She’d flirt with the Portuguese milkman if she had a chance.  She can’t seem to understand that because she wants to be free she isn’t free!  Talks about ‘if I marry again,’ and so on.  Of course Carleton’s marrying again has made her wild.”

“But, good heavens, Richie, Ted ought to have some sense!”

“Well, she hasn’t.  She stretched a point to marry him, d’you see?  Carleton had been baptized as a child, and his first wife hadn’t, and they were married by a Justice of the Peace, or something of that sort.  So Ted claimed that in the eyes of the Church he hadn’t been married at all, and she married him.  Then——­”