full of old trees more climbable than any others which have grown
since the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn and
old hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York _Tribune_; about the
pantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn and
cheese-press.

Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt Victoria
spoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhood
hours. Once Sylvia asked her, "But if you were a little girl there,
and Mother was too,--then you and Father and she must have played
together sometimes?"

Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, "No, I never saw your mother,
and neither did your father--until a few months before they were
married."

"Well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed Sylvia--"she _always_ lived in
Lydford except when she went away to college."

Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual with
her, and finally brought out, "Your mother lived on a farm, and we
lived in our summer house in the village." She added after a moment's
deliberation: "Her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our
butter. Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door."
She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke.

"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said Sylvia
in surprise. Nothing came to the Marshalls' kitchen door which was not
in the children's field of consciousness.