“Your mother was to blame, Ju,” Miss Toland said, gravely shaking her head.

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps her mother was,” Julia suggested.  “Yet my Grandmother Cox is a sweet little old woman,” she went on, smiling, “always afraid we’re hungry, and anxious to feed us, tremendously loyal to us all.  I went out there to-day, to take Mama some special little things for Thanksgiving, and see if their turkey had gotten there, and so on, and my heart quite ached for Grandma—­Mama’s very exacting now, and the girls—­my aunt, Mrs. Torney’s girls—­seemed so apathetic and dull.  The house was very dirty, as it always is, and the halls icy, and the kitchen hot—­I just wanted to pitch in and clean!  Mama was cross at me for not bringing Anna, in this rain, and staying to dinner to-morrow; but Grandmother was so pleased to have the things, and she got to telling me of old times, poor thing, and how she had to work and scheme to get up a Thanksgiving dinner, and how my grandfather would worry her by promising that he’d only have one drink, and then disappearing for hours—­”

“Does it ever occur to you that you are an unusual woman, Julia?” Miss Toland asked, holding her watch to the baby’s ear.  Julia flushed and laughed.

“Well, no, I don’t believe it ever did!”

“Not so much in climbing up in the world as you have,” pursued the older woman, “but in not despising the people you left behind you!  That’s very fine, Julie.  I can’t tell you how fine it seems to me!”

“There’s nothing fine about it,” Julia said simply.  “It’s just that I like that sort of people as well as I do—­Jim’s sort.  I used to think that to work my way into a world where everything was fine and fragrant and costly would mean to be happy, but of course it doesn’t, and I’ve come more and more to feel that I like the class where joys are real, and sorrows are real, and the goodness means more, and there’s more excuse for the badness!”

“Did you ever think of writing, Julia?” Miss Toland asked.  “Stories, I mean?”

“Everybody does nowadays, I suppose,” Julia laughed.  “Sometimes I think what good material The Alexander stuff would be, Aunt Sanna.  But the truth is, Jim doesn’t like the idea.”

“Doesn’t?  Bless us all, why not?”

“Oh!” Julia dimpled demurely.  “The great Mrs. Studdiford writing, like a mere ordinary person?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s it?  Where is Jim, by the way?”

“Sacramento.  But the operation was on Sunday, so he should have been here yesterday, at latest,” Julia said.  “However, he’ll rush in to-night or to-morrow; he knows you’re all going to be here.  Give her to me, Aunt Sanna, she’s getting hungry, bless her little old heart!  Ah, here’s Ellie with something for Mother’s girl!”

“And tea for you in the library,” Ellie said in an aside, receiving the baby into her arms with a rapturous look.

“Tea, doesn’t tea sound good!” Julia caught Miss Toland by the hand.  “Come and have some tea, Aunt Sanna!” said she.  “I’m starving!”