"I know it," confessed Nancy remorsefully. "I have been wicked since the
moment I tried to get rid of You Dirty Boy. I don't know what's the
matter with me. My blood seems to be too red, and it courses wildly
through my veins, as the books say. I am going to turn over a new leaf,
now that Cousin Ann's gone and our only cross is Julia!"

Oh! but it is rather dreadful to think how one person can spoil the
world! If only you could have seen the Yellow House after Cousin Ana
went! If only you could have heard the hotel landlady exclaim as she
drove past: "Well! Good riddance to bad rubbish!" The weather grew
warmer outside almost at once, and Bill Harmon's son planted the garden.
The fireplaces ceased to smoke and the kitchen stove drew. Colonel
Wheeler suggested a new chain pump instead of the old wooden one, after
which the water took a turn for the better, and before the month was
ended the Yellow House began to look like home, notwithstanding Julia.

As for Beulah village, after its sleep of months under deep snow-drifts
it had waked into the adorable beauty of an early New England summer. It
had no snow-capped mountains in the distance; no amethyst foothills to
enchain the eye; no wonderful canyons and splendid rocky passes to make
the tourist marvel; no length of yellow sea sands nor plash of ocean
surf; no trade, no amusements, no summer visitors;--it was just a quiet,
little, sunny, verdant, leafy piece of heart's content, that's what
Beulah was, and Julia couldn't spoil it; indeed, the odds were, that it
would sweeten Julia! That was what Mother Carey hoped when her heart had
an hour's leisure to drift beyond Shiny Wall into Peacepool and consider
the needs of her five children. It was generally at twilight, when she
was getting Peter to sleep, that she was busiest making "old beasts
into new."