I've known the day when that very piece of rag carpet--
sixty balls there were in it and every one I sewed with
my own fingers--was the best I had for my spare room,
with a bit of ingrain in the middle. Dear me!" she went
on with a smile that lightened the whole situation, "how
proud I was of that performance! She didn't tell ME she
objected to rag carpet!"

"No, Mother," Advena agreed, "she knew better."

They were all there in the kitchen, supporting their
mother, and it seems an opportunity to name them. Advena,
the eldest, stood by the long kitchen table washing the
breakfast cups in "soft" soap and hot water. The soft
soap--Mrs Murchison had a barrelful boiled every spring
in the back yard, an old colonial economy she hated to
resign--made a fascinating brown lather with iridescent
bubbles. Advena poured cupfuls of it from on high to see
the foam rise, till her mother told her for mercy's sake
to get on with those dishes. She stood before a long low
window, looking out into the garden and the light,
filtering through apple branches on her face showed her
strongly featured and intelligent for fourteen. Advena
was named after one grandmother; when the next girl came
Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it
Abigail, after the other. She thought both names outlandish
and acted under protest, but hoped that now everybody
would be satisfied. Lorne came after Advena, at the period
of a naive fashion of christening the young sons of Canada
in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple way