At the threshold her mother met her, querulous and in the midst of
adjusting summer covers to furniture.

"How late! I hope, Miriam, right away you had the steamer-trunk sent up.
Good berths--good state-rooms you got? What you got in that paper, that
aloes root I told you to get against seasickness? Gimme and right away I
boil it."

"No, no, don't touch them! They--they're violets. Let me put them in
water with wet tissue-paper over them."

* * * * *

To the early clattering of that faithful chariot of daybreak, the
milk-wagon, and with the April dawn quivering and flushing over the
roofs of houses, Mrs. Binswanger rose from her restless couch and into a
black flannelette wrapper.

"Simon, wake up! How a man can sleep like that the day what he starts
for Europe!"

To her husband's continued and stentorian evidences of sleep she tiptoed
to the adjoining bedroom, slippered feet sloughing as she walked.

"Girls!"

Only their light breathing answered her. Atop the bed-coverlet her
younger daughter's hand lay upturned, the fingers curling toward the
palm.