Incoherent little cries, and sentences unfinished:

"Pinky! Why--my baby! We didn't get your telegram. Did you--"

"No; I didn't. I just thought I--Don't look so dazed, mummy--You're all
smudged, too--what in the world!" Pinky straightened her hat and looked
about the attic. "Why, mother! You're--you're house cleaning!" There was
a stunned sort of look on her face. Pinky's last visit home had been in
June, all hammocks, and roses, and especially baked things, and motor
trips into the country.

"Of course. This is September. But if I'd known you were coming--Come
here to the window. Let mother see you. Is that the kind of hat
they're--why, it's a winter one, isn't it? Already! Dear me, I've just
got used to the angle of my summer one. You must telephone father."

Miz' Merz, damply calicoed, rose from a corner and came forward, wiping
a moist and parboiled hand on her skirt. "Ha' do, Pinky. Ain't forgot
your old friends, have you?"

"It's Mrs. Merz!" Pinky put her cool, sweet fingers into the other
woman's spongy clasp. "Why, hello, Mrs. Merz! Of course when there's
house cleaning--I'd forgotten all about house cleaning--that there was
such a thing, I mean."

"It's got to be done," replied Miz' Merz, severely.

Pinky, suddenly looking like one of her own magazine covers (in tailor
clothes), turned swiftly to her mother. "Nothing of the kind," she said,