Bert's could break. She was Nancy Bradley again, a wife and mother
and housekeeper first, and everything else afterward.

What would they do now--where would they go? She did not care. She
had been afraid of a hundred contingencies only this morning,
fretted with tiny necessities, annoyed by inessential details. Now
a real event had come along, and she could breathe again.

"I wonder what I've been afraid of, all this time?" mused Nancy.
And she smiled over a sudden, mutinous thought. How many of the
women she knew would be glad to have their houses burned down
between luncheon and dinner on a summer Saturday? She turned to
Bert. "Pierre and Pauline may now consider themselves as
automatically dismissed," she said.

"They have already come to that conclusion," Bert said, with some
relish. "I am to figure out what I owe them, and mail them a
check. Some of their things they got out--most of them, I guess. I
saw someone putting their trunk on a wagon, awhile back, and I
imagine that we have parted forever."

"Hannah transfers herself this night to the Fielding menage" Nancy
added after a while. "Which reduces our staff to Agnes. I never
want to part with Agnes. You can't buy tears and loyalty like
that; they're a gift from God, Where do we spend the night, by the
way?"

Bert gazed at her calmly.

"I have not the faintest idea, my dear woman!" Then they laughed