It was gorgeous and deafening and tee-total.

We could have lived a year on it.

I'm not good at figures, but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned and the station-wagon and the Victoria, we could manage at least twice as long on the cost of the 'house-warming.' I think the orchids alone would have lasted us a couple of months.

There they were, before me, but I couldn't steal 'em and sell 'em, and so--well, so I did what I could!" She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother.

"It seemed to be a success--what I could," she said, clasping her hands behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic accompaniment to her narrative.