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RS. WEDLAKE frankly acknowledged that she was interested in her new neighbors, who, two weeks before, on the fatal First of May, had moved into the freshly painted, freshly papered little house next door, where an elderly pair had formerly lived, and now it seemed that youth and springtime had joyously slipped through the varnished doors. Newly-weds they certainly were, strangers in the little suburb, but even moving and settling seemed not to check their flow of spirits. She had heard that Stewart was their name, and she planned to call later when they should be well settled, she told herself. The young wife, a slim girl, pink-cheeked, whose shining brown hair was gathered into a low knot above her smart smock, never failed to meet her broad-shouldered youthful husband each evening at the opening in the hedge, and tucking her arm in his would lead him. into the house, chatting happily of, evidently, the day's experiences. They had no maid, that was plain, only a colored woman, by the day, several times a week, who ponderously came and went, usually arriving a little late.

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Mrs. Wedlake, for thirty years. capable housekeeper and for twenty years a widow, used to her well-trained Irish Mary, wondered sometimes whether the children next door she thought of them as children got along with their housekeeping, and decided that Mrs. Stewart had probably taken a course in Domestic Science, since the commuter husband looked plump and contented.

The following Sunday afternoon Maria. Wedlake watched her Mary, clad in all her rather alarming finery, disappearing down the street, and, picking up a magazine, she chose a comfortable chair and settled down on the side piazza out of the sun for a peaceful hour. She was

deep in an account of a reclaimed French village, when the persistent honk, honk of an automobile horn made her look up a large car had stopped before her house, and a well-bred voice from the rear seat inquired: "Can you tell us where a family named Stewart live? I've quite forgotten their number, but I know they have recently moved into this neighborhood."

"In the house next door," and Mrs. Wedlake surveyed the car and its occupants placidly, noting the elderly pair in the back and the younger woman in front with the chauffeur.

"Thanks very much," was the rejoinder. Again the chauffeur sounded his raucous note, and this time it brought the young husband hurrying out to meet his guests.

"We would have warned you, Tom," began the impressive looking dowager, her voice floated clearly over to the solitary occupant of the next piazza – "but we could not tell when we could come; Bella said it wouldn't make any difference anyway, as suburbanites always expect to be descended upon fine Sundays."

"Yes," broke in a high voice, "Mildred will get used to sudden arrivals; it's one of the penalties of being a newlywed; oh, here's Mildred now; where is that bag of mine, I'm always mislaying it-oh, hello, dear, we've come!"

"How lovely to see you!" was Mildred's reply as she took their wraps from them and escorted their guests up the walk. "Yes, we love to keep open house, don't we, Tom?" but Mrs. Wedlake, motherly and sympathetic, noted the troubled flush and the quick glance that passed between the Stewarts.

The tall clock just inside the Wedlake parlor struck five metallic strokes and Maria Wedlake, as if reproving her

ancient timepiece, announced oracularly: "Company to supper and I wager that that girl isn't prepared for 'em either. Poor dear, how worried she looked, though she tried to smile all right."

She opened the magazine, read a few paragraphs and then looked up and off, her eyes fixed upon some spreading elm trees in the back yard, foliaged in the warm green of June, but what she visioned was a memory picture vivid as though it were yesterday; a young wife, this one brown-haired, too, standing by her strong, tall husband, who bore small resemblance to a rather sternfaced, middle-aged gentleman who from his oval frame at this moment looked down on the darkened parlor, but who was, nevertheless, her John of the long ago; and she and he were gazing helplessly at each other in the seclusion of the kitchen, wondering how they should feed sudden company who had driven over to see the new home in the country, - interested relatives, one and all, and, as the vision faded, Mrs. Wedlake closed her magazine with decision, and with firm step walked to the refrigerator, just as firmly opened the door and surveyed the contents. A bowl of baked beans first met her eyes, bounded on one side by a generous saucer of cooked peas, and on the other, one of sliced beets. On the shelf above were four boiled potatoes and a bowl of cooked oatmeal. A quick glance at the icechamber disclosed a pint of milk-so far so good. The closet held a pound of American cheese, ordered yesterday, and not far away stood a chocolate layer-cake, dark and perfect, with even layers, in unconscious dignity, a cake to be proud of.

Mrs. Wedlake sighed, but not as one without hope far from it; it was a sigh of satisfaction she had all that she needed.

A moment of hesitation and Maria Wedlake sought the telephone, took up the receiver-512-M- she announced steadily, then waited, with a smile on her

usually sober countenance, for the voice at the other end.

"Yes," came over the wire, a rather dejected yes, "this is Mrs. Stewart."

"I'm your neighbor next door," announced Mrs. Wedlake a bit hurriedly, "haven't called because I thought you might not be ready, but I see that other folks weren't so considerate. Couldn't help seeing that you had company, and late Sunday afternoon, too."

"Yes, oh, yes, and you know sometimes one is not as well prepared as at others;" there was almost a break in the fresh young voice.

"So I thought, and now be a sensible girl, and don't think that I'm a meddling older woman! I was a young housekeeper myself once, and I really want you to let me help you out, will you?"

"Why why" and Mrs. Stewart stopped as if at a loss to know what was coming.

"It's just this way," began Mrs. Wedlake, and there was no stopping her flood of eloquence now flood of eloquence now"I'm a good cook if I do say it; I've plenty to work with in my refrigerator, luckily; let me get supper for you; I'd enjoy it; my girl's away and I'm all alone with nothing to do. Set your table, put on your pretty new doilies I know all brides have 'em have 'em and your wedding china; and by seven o'clock sharp I'll hand the food across the hedge, ready to set on the table. Now it's all settled, isn't it? "Oh, oh!" and Mrs. Stewart paused, then went bravely on, "if if you will; it's too wonderful! You see, I feel pretty helpless I'm so far away from Mother why, why, I'll make it up to you later, if I can. Do you know, I had only a half-loaf of bread, a box of strawberries, a small can of sardines. and a box of little sweet crackers. I went to town yesterday and forgot, I confess, to order enough for Sunday, and then my husband's cousins came. They live awfully well, and I'd like to make a good impression for his sakeyou understand."

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"Guess I do understand," Mrs. Wedlake's voice was grim over the phone; "had made up my mind to that, and that's why I called you up. Hull your berries and just make tea about ten minutes to seven," and she put up the receiver "an hour and a half to do it all in."

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Mrs. Wedlake spread out her provender upon the kitchen table; the light of conquest was in her eyes "I'll make a bean rarebit out of these cold baked beans, one-half cup of milk and a cup of cheese and generous seasoning where's my Worcestershire sauce bottle must pour the rarebit saltines instead of toast, for I'm a little pushed for time. Out of the boiled potatoes, the cold beets and peas I'll make a vegetable salad, adding a few of my pickled nasturtium seeds, just to give a nip. I'm glad the lettuce in the garden will do; I'll shred up some of the small leaves, and stir them in, too, then I'll make some oatmeal bread, using that cold oatmeal, corn meal and a cup of wheat flour, after the new recipe; hot bread is always good for supper. The chocolate cake will go well with her strawberries," her cheeks were flushed with the joy of the chase, and enveloping her ample figure in a motherly looking checked apron she settled down to her self-appointed task.

Exactly at seven little Mrs. Stewart, radiant in a frilly pink frock, appeared at the hedge and held out slim hands for the well-loaded tray that Mrs. Wedlake proffered, and, as she took it, pressed a pink cheek to the older woman's, whispering: "I can't say all I feel, but I'll come over tomorrow and tell you how it all goes and return the dishes."

"Come along, I want to hear all about it," and Mrs. Stewart's neighbor pattered home to her solitary supper, chuckling to herself between sips of hot tea.

"Here are the dishes; here is the tray and here are some chocolates to munch, while I describe to you, your, our supper," cried Mrs. Stewart next morning, as she tapped on the window, and putting down her burden impulsively seized her new friend's hand.

"It was the wonderfulest supper, the most successful supper you ever knew or heard of, and, oh, how they did eat. Second cousin Jane must have been starved; third cousin Bella asked for my recipes, saying their cook must make that rarebit, and as for the oatmeal bread, why, they were shameless in the way they ate it. I could not look at Tom when I said I would send the rarebit recipe.

"Second cousin Egbert adored the salad for that matter they all did, and as for that picture cake, Tom ate two pieces, and the rest large sections but, oh, if they come again they will see a great and sickening change."

"No, they won't, child," Mrs. Wedlake talked a bit thickly, as she had just bitten into a large caramel, "you shall learn how to cook the rarebit and the rest, and, if you really like to, we'll have some nice housekeeping confabs together, just you and I."

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EFORE Jane Glover signed the Federal Administration pledge, or hung its card in her window, she held a meeting of her boarders. The pros and cons of meatless and wheatless days, the lessening of sweet desserts, the elimination of butter from the dinner table, were thoroughly talked over. She put the matter entirely on a patriotic basis, emphasizing her willingness to go on in the old way as long as food-stuffs held out, if the family so elected. They must decide the case.

Mr. Dodd demurred considerably on the meat question, seeking refuge behind the fact that he was the poorest sort of a vegetarian. Potatoes, green peas and asparagus were the only ones he really relished. Mr. Judson thought it was asking a good deal of a man of sixty to change his eating habits and "go light" on both roast beef and his cherished Yorkshire pudding. Poor Miss Stanley had a decidedly pained expression on her face, when the discussion of corn meal as a wheat substitute was progressing. She had been reared in a part of the country where some of the tight-fisted farmers' wives had sprinkled their tins with corn meal instead of using pie crust in making pumpkin pies, and furthermore some of them had so mutilated the original Johnny cake recipe as to produce such an edible result that Miss Stanley's prejudice was accumulative from childhood up regarding corn meal as a proper food for humans. "Whisper it not in Gath," but she took a second helping of it for breakfast one crisp, cold morning in November, after said corn meal had spent a night in the fireless, with its cell walls so broken down by the long, slow cooking, that she never for one moment suspected that the smooth, velvety cereal was her old-time bugbear. Elsie Rogers had a similar dislike for oatmeal, but at

this period in her life history she had never tasted Jane Glover's oatmeal bread or toasted bannocks.

Now Mrs. Dodd, without defining it specifically, had long felt that she was doing the martyr act by resolutely limiting her breakfasts to one orange, two slices of well-browned toast and one cup of clear coffee. This she had done for twenty years. Now when Mr. Hoover can show a better record than that, she declared, I will consider joining his ranks.

All the while Mrs. Glover sat quietly by making many mental notes. When the discussion reached the butter stage, there was a great variety of opinions expressed, with the result that they all finally agreed to begin conserving by giving up butter entirely at dinner. Up to this point the hall-room boys had said very little. Patriotism is a vital matter with the normal boy of today, and his eating habits are still flexible. To them a few less pounds of meat and bread seemed a small matter especially, as Joe Maxwell put it, "so long as Jane Glover wields the saucepan." Count us in on anything that will assure better food for the boys at the front," Joe further remarked. This was an entering wedge, and it was decided, finally, to let Mrs. Glover enroll her household as loyal members of the Food Conservation.

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Jane knew that the consent of the governed is a dynamic force, and with such a lever behind her she had no fears but that she could rely upon the cordial co-operation of every boarder.

So much for her psychology, so much for her generalship in fortifying a strategic point. When Jane Glover enlisted in a cause, she gave herself to it, body and soul. Furthermore this cause appealed to her as vital and of far-reaching importance. She looked upon it as a patriotic service belonging inherently to women.