“Oh, it is nice to be back home,” sighed Molly, settling herself luxuriously in the sleepy-hollow chair that was supposed to be set aside for the master of the house. With the girlish habit she had never outgrown, she slipped off her pumps and stretched out her slender feet to the wood fire, that felt very comfortable in the crisp autumn weather.

“That’s what you said when we arrived in Kentucky in the spring,” teased her husband.

“Well, so it was nice. The migratory birds have two homes and they are always glad to get to whichever one is seasonable. I reckon I am with my two homes as Mother is with her seven children. I love them just the same. Thank goodness, I haven’t seven of them, homes, I mean.”

“Yes, I think two are enough.”

“Which home do you love best, Wellington or the Orchard Home?” asked Molly, smiling fondly at her husband, who was dandling little Mildred on his knees with awkward eagerness.

“Why, neither one of them is home to me unless you are there, and whichever one you grace with your presence is for the time being the one I like the better.”

“And the baby, too, whichever one she is in makes it home!”

“Oh, certainly!” exclaimed Edwin Green with a whimsical expression on his face. “I see that when I make love now it is to be to two ladies and not to one.”

“Don’t you think Mildred has grown a lot? And see, her eyes have really turned brown, just as Mother said they would. Don’t you think she looks well?”

“Yes, honey, I think she looks very well, but I don’t think you do.”

“Me! Nonsense! I am as well as can be, just a little tired from the trip.”

“Yes, I know. Of course that was fatiguing, but I think you are thinner than you have any right to be. I am afraid you have been doing too much.”

“Oh, not at all. I have had simply nothing to do but take care of the baby, and that is just play, real play.”

“Humph, no doubt! But maybe you have played too hard and that is what has tired you. I thought you were going to bring Kizzie along to nurse.”

“Oh, that was your and Mother’s plan! I never had any idea of doing it. ’Deed and um’s muvver is going to take care of ’ittle bits a baby herself,” and Molly reached out and snuggled the willing Mildred down in the sleepy-hollow chair. Daddy’s knee was not the most comfortable spot in the world, and a back that has only been in the world about four months cannot stand for much dandling.

“But, Molly darling, Kizzie is a good girl and it would help you ever so much to have her. You know we can well afford it now, so don’t let the financial side of it worry you.”

“But, Edwin, I can’t give up taking care of the baby. I just love to do it.”

“All right, my dear, but please don’t wear yourself out.”

The fact was that the long strain of waiting for news from Kent had told on Molly, and she was looking quite wan and tired. It was not just the trip from Kentucky, which, of course, was no easy matter. Twenty-four hours on the train with an infant that needed much attention and got much more than it really needed was no joke, but the long hours and days of waiting and uncertainty had taken Molly’s strength. She did feel tired and had no appetite, but she felt sure a night’s rest would restore her. She rather attributed her lack of appetite to the poor food that the new Irish maid, whom Edwin had installed in her absence, was serving.

“I’ll take hold of her to-morrow and see what can be done,” she said rather wearily to herself. “I wish Mother could train her for me. I should much rather do the cooking myself than try to train some one who is as hopelessly green as this girl.”

That night little Mildred decided was a good time to assert herself. The trip had not tired her at all; on the contrary, it had spurred her on to a state of hilarity, which was very amusing at first but as the night wore on, ceased to be funny. She had come to the delightful knowledge of the fact that she had feet and that each foot had five toes. The cover did not stay on these little pigs one moment. Every time Molly would settle her tired bones and begin to doze, there would be a crow from Mildred, a gurgle, and straight in the air would go the bed clothes, tucked in for the millionth time by the patient young mother. Then the pink tootsies would leap into sight and soon find their way to a determined little mouth.

“Darling, you must go to sleepsumby!” Molly would remonstrate. “And you will catch your death if you don’t keep covered up!”

But the four months’ old baby had been too busy in her short life learning other things to bother her head about a mere language. The business of the night was feet and feet alone. There was too much to do about those wonderful little feet for her to think of sleep. Finally Molly gave up. She closed the windows, as too much fresh air on bare feet and legs might not be best and already the little limbs were icy cold. Then she kindled a fire in the grate, the furnace not yet having been started, and gave herself up to a night of sleeplessness. Early in the action, Edwin had been banished to the guest chamber, as he must get sleep no matter what happened, for he had a busy day ahead of him.

Toward morning little Mildred mastered her pedagogy, as her father had called it, and then she dropped off into a deep and peaceful sleep. The weary Molly slept, too.

Before he went to his lectures, Edwin crept into the room to look at his sleeping treasures. The chubby baby still had a toe clasped in her hand but from very weariness had fallen over on her side and was covered up all but the pink foot, which was asserting itself in the remarkable position that only the young can take. Molly looked very pale and tired but was sleeping peacefully. Edwin smiled at them. He had given the green maid from the Emerald Isle strict orders not to awaken them. He devoutly hoped that Molly would not know what a very mean breakfast he had endeavored to choke down; burnt bacon and underdone biscuit washed down with very weak coffee and flanked by eggs that had been cooked too long and not long enough, thereby undergoing that process that the chemist tells us is of all things the most indigestible: half hard and half soft. The burnt bacon had been cold and the underdone biscuit still cooking, seemingly, when the poor young husband and father had tried to nourish himself on them.

He had rather hoped when Molly once got back to Wellington that his food would be better; no doubt it would as soon as she, poor girl, could get rested up. He was thankful, indeed, now that she was asleep and tiptoed out of the room and house without making a sound.

She slept until late in the morning and then the business of the day began, getting little Mildred fed and washed and dressed and fed again and then to sleep. The good-natured, if wholly incapable, Katy hung around and waited on the pretty young mistress. Katy had never been out in service in the “schtates,” but had come from New York in answer to an advertisement in a newspaper inserted by the despairing professor when he had come back to Wellington alone while his wife waited in Kentucky for news of her brother. He had had kindly visions of getting a good Irish cook and having the housekeeping all running beautifully before Molly’s return.

Immigrant Katy proved rosy and willing but with no more conception of how to cook than she had how to clean. She was great on “scroobing,” but walls and furniture and carpets were not supposed to be scrubbed. The kitchen floor and pantry shelves were alike beautiful after her administrations, but gold dust and a stiff brush had not improved the appearance of the piano legs. Edwin had come home in the nick of time to stop her before she vented her energies on Molly’s own Persian rug, the pride of her heart because of the wonderful blue in it.

“What time is it, Katy?” asked Molly after the baby was absolutely finished and tucked in her carriage to stay on the porch.

“’Tis twilve of the clock, Miss, and I haven’t so much as turned a hand below schtairs.”

“Oh, it can’t be that late! Lunch at one! What are we to have?”

“And that I am not knowing, Miss. Sure and there is nothing in the house.”

“Oh, Katy, and I have been dawdling up here for hours! I forgot about keeping house, I was so taken up with the baby.”

“Yes, and no doubt your man will be sour about it, too.”

Molly, still in her kimono, flew to the regions below and began frantically to search for something to concoct into luncheon. A forlorn piece of roast veal was excavated and half a loaf of stale baker’s bread. A can of asparagus, a leftover from the housekeeping of the spring, was unearthed. Olive oil was in the refrigerator, also, butter, milk and eggs. The veal looked very hopeless, evidently having reposed for hours in a half cold oven before it had furnished forth a miserable dinner for the poor professor.

“Now I’ll ’form a miracle on the vituals,’ as dear Aunt Mary would say,” declared Molly to herself. “Katy, get the dining room straight. Don’t scrub anything but just clear off the table and then set it again as well as you can. Put on a fresh lunch cloth and clean napkins; then see that the fire in the library is all right.”

The veal, run through the meat chopper, came out better than was to be expected, and croquettes were formed and frying in deep fat before the dazed Katy had cleared off the breakfast table.

“Katy, you must hurry or we won’t have the master’s luncheon ready when he gets in.”

“Faith, and, Mrs. Green, you do be flying round so schwift like, that I can’t get me breath. I feel like the wind from your schkirts was sinding me back. All I can do is schtand schtill and breast the wind.”

“Well, I tell you what you do then,” laughed Molly: “You come fly with the wind,” and she caught the Irish girl by the hand and ran her around the dining room table just to show her how fast she could go if necessary. Katy, having got wound up, kept on going at a rate of speed that was astonishing. To be sure, she broke a cup and a plate, but what was a little chaney to the master’s luncheon being served on time?

The faithful can of asparagus was opened and heated; toast was made from the half loaf of stale bread, and a cream sauce prepared to pour over the asparagus on toast. Popovers were stirred up and in the oven before Katy got the table set, although she was going with the wind instead of trying to breast it. A few rosy apples from the orchard at Chatsworth, unearthed from the depths of the unpacked trunk, formed a salad with a mayonnaise made in such a hurry that Molly trembled for its quality; but luck being with her that day, it turned out beautifully.

“No lettuce, so we’ll put the salad on those green majolica plates and maybe he won’t notice,” she called to Katy, just as the professor opened the front door.

“Mol—ly!” he called.

“Here I am.”

The mistress of the house emerged from the kitchen in a state of mussiness but looking very pretty withal, her red-gold hair curling up in little ringlets from the steam and her cheeks as rosy as though she had joost come over wid Katy. Her blue kimono was very becoming but hardly what she would have chosen to appear in at luncheon.

“I am so sorry not to be dressed, but I had to hustle so as to get lunch ready in time. The clock struck twelve when I thought it was about ten.”

“Did you have to get luncheon? Where was Katy?”

“She helped, but I wanted to have a finger in it. If you will wait a minute, I will get into a dress.”

“Why, you look beautiful in that loose blue thing; besides, I have to eat and run. A faculty meeting is calling me.”

The luncheon was delicious, and Edwin gave it all praise by devouring large quantities of it. Molly could not eat much as she was too hot, and hurrying is not conducive to appetite. Mildred, who was sleeping on the porch, awoke when the meal was half over and Molly could not trust Katy to take her up.

“She might hold her upside down. I will bring her to the table and she can talk to you while you are finishing!”

So Molly flew to the porch and picked up her darling. She had intended to take her to the dining room but she remembered it was time for Mildred to have her food and so the patient Edwin had to finish his meal alone.

He found his wife and baby on the upper back porch. The color had left Molly’s cheeks and she was quite pale, and there was a little wan, wistful look in her countenance that Edwin did not like.

“Molly, honey, you are all tired out. You did not eat your luncheon and you got no sleep last night. What are we going to do about it?”

“Oh, I’m all right! Please don’t bother about me! Did you like the apple salad? They were apples from Kentucky.”

“Fine! Everything was delicious. But I don’t want you to wear yourself out cooking. If Katy can’t cook, we must get some one who can. If she can’t cook and you won’t let her nurse, why what is the use of her?”

Molly, worn out with the sleepless night and the record breaking getting of a meal out of nothing, felt as though she would disgrace herself in a minute and burst into tears. She could not discuss the matter with Edwin for fear of breaking down. Edwin kissed her good-by and tactfully withdrew.

“You goose, Molly Brown!” she scolded herself. “And what on earth are you so full of tears over? I know Edwin thinks I ought to have a nurse and I just can’t trust Mildred to any one. I am going to try so hard to have everything so nice that he won’t think about it any more.”

A grand telephoning for provisions ensued, and a dinner was planned for six-thirty that would have taxed the culinary powers of a real chef and before which Katy bowed her head in defeat. It meant that by four Molly must be back in the kitchen to start things.