At the end of a week Honora showed a decided change for the better. The horror had gone out of her face; she ate without persuasion; she slept briefly but often. The conclusion of a fortnight saw her still sad, but beyond immediate danger of melancholy. She began to assume some slight responsibility toward the children, and she loved to have them playing about her, although she soon wearied of them.
Kate had decided not to go back to Chicago until her return from California. She was to speak to the Federation of Women's Clubs which met at Los Angeles, and she proposed taking Honora with her. Honora was not averse if Kate and Karl thought it best for her. The babies were to remain safe at home.
"I wouldn't dare experiment with babies," said Kate. "At least, not with other people's."
"You surely wouldn't experiment with your own, ma'am!" cried the privileged Mrs. Hays.
"Oh, I might," Kate insisted. "If I had babies of my own, I'd like them to be hard, brown little savages--the sort you could put on donkey-back or camel-back and take anywhere."
Mrs. Hays shook her head at the idea of camels. It hardly sounded Christian, and certainly it in no way met her notion of the need of infants.
"Mrs. Browning writes about taking her baby to a mountain-top not far from the stars," Kate went on. "They rode donkey-back, I believe. Personally, however, I should prefer the camel. For one thing, you could get more babies on his back."
Mrs. Hays threw a glance at her mistress as if to say: "Is it proper for a young woman to talk like this?"
The young woman in question said many things which, according to the always discreet and sensible Mrs. Hays, were hardly to be commended.
There was, for example, the evening she had stood in the westward end of the veranda and called:--