“Be-autiful,” came in a sleepy voice from against her arm, “is the water cold?”

“Awful this morning,” answered Caroline tightening her arms.  “Just a little hot, Phoebe, please!  I’ll tell Annette.”

“No,” answered Phoebe, as with a whirl of the covers she sat up and took her knees into her embrace.  “No, sweetie, in I go!  The colder the better after I’m in.  How grand and Burne-Jonesy you look in that linen pinafore—­indulging in the life domestic?  I think I catch a whiff of your culinary atmosphere—­and, oh, I—­am so—­hungry.”

“Tempie has a dear little plump bird for you and some waffles and an omelet.  Let me have Annette bring them to you here!  Please, Phoebe, please!”

“Caroline Darrah Brown,” said Phoebe in a tragic voice, “do you know I gained a pound and a quarter last week and that makes me three and a half pounds past the danger-mark?  Two raw eggs and an orange is all I can have this morning.  I’m going to cry, I think!”

“No,” answered Caroline Darrah positively, “you are going to eat that bird and the omelet.  You may substitute dry toast for the waffle if Tempie will let you.  She’s angry, and I’m in trouble.  She won’t use that recipe I got from your Mammy Kitty to make the cake I promised David Kildare for tea.  She says she and her family have been making Buchanan cake ever since there was any cake and she is not going to begin now making Donelson mixtures.  I think I hurt her feelings.  What must I do?”

“Let her alone, she has the right of it and the cake is sure to be just as good,” laughed Phoebe.

“But I promised him it should be just like the one you gave us the other afternoon, only with the icing and nuts thicker than the cake,” answered Caroline in real distress.  “He says that Mr. Sevier likes it that way, too,” she added ingenuously.

“Caroline Darrah, you spoil those men to the most outrageous extent.  It’s like David to want his icing and nuts thicker than the cake; he always does—­and gets it, but it isn’t good for him.”  As Phoebe spoke she smiled at Caroline Darrah indulgently.

“I can’t help it, Phoebe,” she answered with the rose wave mounting under her eyes.  “I’m stupid—­I don’t know how to manage them.  I’m just—­fond of them.”

For a second Phoebe regarded her from under veiled eyes, then said guardedly, “Doesn’t that give them rather the advantage to start with—­if you let them find it out?”

“Yes,” answered Caroline as she pressed her cheek against Phoebe’s arm, “I know it does but I can’t help it.  I have to trust to them to understand.”

For a moment Phoebe was silent and across her mind there flashed David’s description of a man who sat into the gray dawn fighting his battle—­his own and hers—­a man who wouldn’t run!

“Perhaps that’s the best way after all, dearie,” she said as she prepared to slip out of bed.  “Only it takes the exceptional woman to get results from your method.  It ought to work with David; others don’t seem to!”