The Marchbankses never made sofa-covers of brown waterproof, nor had Miss Trixies to spend the day.  That was because they had no back-door to their house.

I suppose you think there are a good many people in our story.  There are; when we think it up there are ever so many people that have to do with our story every day; but we don’t mean to tell you all their stories; so you can bear with the momentary introduction when you meet them in our brown room, or in our dining-room, of a morning, although we know very well also that passing introductions are going out of fashion.

We had Dakie Thayne’s last visit that day, in the midst of the hammering and binding.  Leslie and he came in with Ruth, when she came back from her hour with Reba Hadden.  It was to bid us good by; his furlough was over, he was to return to West Point on Monday.

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“Another two years’ pull,” he said.  “Won’t you all come to West Point next summer?”

“If we take the journey we think of,” said Barbara, composedly,—­“to the mountains and Montreal and Quebec; perhaps up the Saguenay; and then back, up Lake Champlain, and down the Hudson, on our way to Saratoga and Niagara.  We might keep on to West Point first, and have a day or two there.”

“Barbara,” said mother, remonstratingly.

“Why? Don’t we think of it?  I’m sure I do.  I’ve thought of it till I’m almost tired of it.  I don’t much believe we shall come, after all, Mr. Thayne.”

“We shall miss you very much,” said Mrs. Holabird, covering Barbara’s nonsense.

“Our summer has stopped right in the middle,” said Barbara, determined to talk.

“I shall hear about you all,” said Dakie Thayne.  “There’s to be a Westover column in Leslie’s news.  I wish—­” and there the cadet stopped.

Mother looked up at him with a pleasant inquiry.

“I was going to say, I wish there might be a Westover correspondent, to put in just a word or two, sometimes; but then I was afraid that would be impertinent.  When a fellow has only eight weeks in the year of living, Mrs. Holabird, and all the rest is drill, you don’t know how he hangs on to those eight weeks,—­and how they hang on to him afterwards.”

Mother looked so motherly at him then!

“We shall not forget you—­Dakie,” she said, using his first name for the first time.  “You shall have a message from us now and then.”

Dakie said, “Thank you,” in a tone that responded to her “Dakie.”

We all knew he liked Mrs. Holabird ever so much.  Homes and mothers are beautiful things to boys who have had to do without them.

He shook hands with us all round, when he got up to go.  He shook hands also with our old friend, Miss Trixie, whom he had never happened to see before.  Then Rosamond went out with him and Leslie,—­as it was our cordial, countrified fashion for somebody to do,—­through the hall to the door.  Ruth went as far as the stairs, on her way to her room to take off her things.  She stood there, up two steps, as they were leaving.