"He's a good boy, Selene. It'll be a proud day for me and gramaw. Gramaw mustn't miss none of it. He's a good boy and a fine family."

"That's why, mama, we—got to—to do it up right."

"Lester knows, child, he's not marrying a rich girl."

"A girl don't have to—be rich to get married right."

"You'll have as good as mama can afford to give it to her girl."

"It—it would be different if Lester's uncle and all wasn't in the Acme Club crowd, and if I hadn't got in with all that bunch. It's the last expense I'll ever be to you, mama."

"Oh, baby, don't say that!"

"I—me and Lester—Lester and me were talking, mama—when the engagement's announced next week—a reception—"

"We can clear out this room, move the bed out of gramaw's room into ours, and serve the ice-cream and cake in—"

"Oh, mama, I don't mean—that!"

"What?"

"Who ever heard of having a reception here! People won't come from town 'way out to this old—cabbage-patch. Even Gertie Wolf, with their big house on West Pine Boulevard, had her reception at the Walsingham Hotel. You—We—can't expect Mark Haas and all the relations—the Sinsheimers— and—all to come out here. I'd rather not have any."

"But, Selene, everybody knows we ain't millionaires, and that you got in with that crowd through being friends at school with Amy Rosen. All the city salesmen and the boys on Washington Avenue, even Mark Haas himself, that time he was in the store with Lester, knows the way we live. You don't need to be ashamed of your little home, Selene, even if it ain't on West Pine Boulevard."

"It'll be—your last expense, mama. The Walsingham, that's where the girl that Lester Goldmark marries is expected to have her reception."

"But, Selene, mama can't afford nothing like that."

Pink swam up into Miss Coblenz's face, and above the sheer-white collar there was a little beating movement at the throat, as if something were fluttering within.

"I—I'd just as soon not get married as—as not to have it like other girls."

"But, Selene—"

"If I—can't have a trousseau like other girls and the things that go with marrying into a—a family like Lester's—I—then—there's no use. I—I can't! I—wouldn't!"

She was fumbling, now, for a handkerchief, against tears that were imminent.

"Why, baby, a girl couldn't have a finer trousseau than the old linens back yet from Russia that me and gramaw got saved up for our girl—linen that can't be bought these days. Bed-sheets that gramaw herself carried to the border, and—"

"Oh, I know! I knew you'd try to dump that stuff on me. That old, worm-eaten stuff in gramaw's chest."

"It's hand-woven, Selene, with—"

"I wouldn't have that yellow old stuff—that old-fashioned junk—if I didn't have any trousseau. If I can't afford monogrammed up-to-date linens, like even Alma Yawitz, and a—a pussy-willow-taffeta reception dress, I wouldn't have any. I wouldn't." Her voice, crowded with passion and tears, rose to the crest of a sob. "I—I'd die first!"

"Selene, Selene, mama 'ain't got the money. If she had it, wouldn't she be willing to take the very last penny to give her girl the kind of a wedding she wants? A trousseau like Alma's cost a thousand dollars, if it cost a cent. Her table-napkins alone, they say, cost thirty-six dollars a dozen, un-monogrammed. A reception at the Walsingham costs two hundred dollars, if it costs a cent. Selene, mama will make for you every sacrifice she can afford, but she 'ain't got the money!"

"You—have got the money!"

"So help me God, Selene! You know, with the quarries shut down, what business has been. You know how—sometimes even to make ends meet it is a pinch. You're an ungrateful girl, Selene, to ask what I ain't able to do for you. A child like you, that's been indulged, that I 'ain't even asked ever in her life to help a day down in the store. If I had the money, God knows you should be married in real lace, with the finest trousseau a girl ever had. But I 'ain't got the money—I 'ain't got the money."

"You have got the money! The book in gramaw's drawer is seven hundred and forty. I guess I ain't blind. I know a thing or two."

"Why, Selene! That's gramaw's—to go back—"

"You mean the bank-book's hers?"

"That's gramaw's, to go back—home on. That's the money for me to take gramaw and her wreaths back home on."

"There you go—talking luny."

"Selene!"

"Well, I'd like to know what else you'd call it, kidding yourself along like that."

"You—"

"All right. If you think gramaw, with her life all lived, comes first before me, with all my life to live—all right!"

"Your poor old—"

"It's always been gramaw first in this house, anyway. I couldn't even have company since I'm grown up because the way she's always allowed around. Nobody can say I ain't good to gramaw; Lester says it's beautiful the way I am with her, remembering always to bring the newspapers and all, but just the same, I know when right's right and wrong's wrong. If my life ain't more important than gramaw's, with hers all lived, all right. Go ahead!"

"Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all her years' hard work helping us that—she should be entitled to go back with her wreaths for the graves? Ain't she entitled to die with that off her poor old mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman that's suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take her back."

"Take her back. Where—to jail? To prison in Siberia herself—"

"There's a way—"

"You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know in your own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less now, there wasn't a chance for her to get passports back there. I don't say it ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to—to keeping me out of the—the biggest thing that can happen to a girl—when gramaw wouldn't know the difference if you keep showing her the bank-book—it ain't right. That's what it ain't. It ain't right!"

In the smallest possible compass, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon the floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked with rising sobs.

"Selene—but some day—"

"Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more than go down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia! You can't get in there, I—tell you—no way you try to fix it after—the way gramaw—had—to leave. Even before the war Ray Letsky's father couldn't get back on business. There's nothing for her there, even after she gets there. In thirty years, do you think you can find those graves? Do you know the size of Siberia? No! But I got to pay—I got to pay for gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't go to Lester if I can't go right. I—."

"Baby, don't cry so—for God's sake, don't cry so!"

"I wish I was dead!"

"'Sh-h-h! You'll wake gramaw."

"I do!"

"O God, help me to do the right thing!"

"If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell you the right thing. Anybody would."

"No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her life—her life."

"She don't need to know, mama. I'm not asking that. That's the way they always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em. Ain't I the one with life before me—ain't I, mama?"

"O God, show me the way!"

"If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for gramaw? But there ain't, mama—not one."

"I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the help of Mark Haas—"

"With the book in her drawer, like always, and the entries changed once in a while, she'll never know the difference. I swear to God she'll never know the difference, mama!"

"Poor gramaw!"

"Mama, promise me—your little Selene. Promise me?"

"Selene, Selene, can we keep it from her?"

"I swear we can, mama."

"Poor, poor gramaw!"

"Mama? Mama darling?"

"O God, show me the way!"

"Ain't it me that's got life before me? My whole life?"

"Yes—Selene."

"Then, mama, please—you will—you will—darling?"

"Yes, Selene."

In a large, all-frescoed, seventy-five-dollar-an-evening-with-lights and cloak-room-service ballroom of the Hotel Walsingham, a family hostelry in that family circle of St. Louis known as its West End, the city holds not a few of its charity-whists and benefit musicales; on a dais which can be carried in for the purpose, morning readings of "Little Moments from Little Plays," and with the introduction of a throne-chair, the monthly lodge-meetings of the Lady Mahadharatas of America. For weddings and receptions, a lane of red carpet leads up to the slight dais; and lined about the brocade and paneled walls, gilt-and-brocade chairs, with the crest of Walsingham in padded embroidery on the backs. Crystal chandeliers, icicles of dripping light, glow down upon a scene of parquet floor, draped velours, and mirrors wreathed in gilt.

At Miss Selene Coblenz's engagement reception, an event properly festooned with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a finger-roll in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly seen and still more faintly heard, played into the babel.

Light, glitteringly filtered through the glass prisms, flowed down upon the dais; upon Miss Selene Coblenz, in a taffeta that wrapped her flat waist and chest like a calyx and suddenly bloomed into the full-inverted petals of a skirt; upon Mr. Lester Goldmark, his long body barely knitted yet to man's estate, and his complexion almost clear, standing omnivorous, omnipotent, omnipresent, his hair so well brushed that it lay like black japanning, a white carnation at his silk lapel, and his smile slightly projected by a rush of very white teeth to the very front. Next in line, Mrs. Coblenz, the red of a fervent moment high in her face, beneath the maroon-net bodice the swell of her bosom, fast, and her white-gloved hand constantly at the opening and shutting of a lace-and-spangled fan. Back, and well out of the picture, a potted hydrangea beside the Louis Quinze armchair, her hands in silk mitts laid out along the gold-chair sides, her head quavering in a kind of mild palsy, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, smiling and quivering her state of bewilderment.

With an unfailing propensity to lay hold of to whomsoever he spake, Mr. Lester Goldmark placed his white-gloved hand upon the white-gloved arm of Mrs. Coblenz.

"Say, Mother Coblenz, ain't it about time this little girl of mine was resting her pink-satin double A's? She's been on duty up here from four to seven. No wonder Uncle Mark bucked."

Mrs. Coblenz threw her glance out over the crowded room, surging with a wave of plumes and clipped heads like a swaying bucket of water which crowds but does not lap over its sides.

"I guess the crowd is finished coming in by now. You tired, Selene?"

Miss Coblenz turned her glowing glance.

"Tired! This is the swellest engagement-party I ever had."

Mrs. Coblenz shifted her weight from one slipper to the other, her maroon-net skirts lying in a swirl around them.

"Just look at gramaw, too! She holds up her head with the best of them. I wouldn't have had her miss this, not for the world."

"Sure one fine old lady! Ought to have seen her shake my hand, Mother Coblenz. I nearly had to holler, 'Ouch!'"

"Mama, here comes Sara Suss and her mother. Take my arm, Lester honey. People mama used to know." Miss Coblenz leaned forward beyond the dais with the frail curve of a reed.

"Howdado, Mrs. Suss.... Thank you. Thanks. Howdado, Sara? Meet my fiance, Lester Haas Goldmark; Mrs. Suss and Sara Suss, my fiance.... That's right, better late than never. There's plenty left.... We think he is, Mrs. Suss. Aw, Lester honey, quit! Mama, here's Mrs. Suss and Sadie."

"Mrs. Suss! Say—if you hadn't come, I was going to lay it up against you. If my new ones can come on a day like this, it's a pity my old friends can't come, too. Well, Sadie, it's your turn next, eh?... I know better than that. With them pink cheeks and black eyes, I wish I had a dime for every chance." (Sotto.) "Do you like it, Mrs. Suss? Pussy-willow taffeta.... Say, it ought to be. An estimate dress from Madame Murphy—sixty-five with findings. I'm so mad, Sara, you and your mama couldn't come to the house that night to see her things. If I say so myself, Mrs. Suss, everybody who seen it says Jacob Sinsheimer's daughter herself didn't have a finer. Maybe not so much, but every stitch, Mrs. Suss, made by the same sisters in the same convent that made hers.... Towels! I tell her it's a shame to expose them to the light, much less wipe on them. Ain't it?... The goodness looks out from his face. And such a love-pair! Lunatics, I call them. He can't keep his hands off. It ain't nice, I tell him.... Me? Come close. I dyed the net myself. Ten cents' worth of maroon color. Don't it warm your heart, Mrs. Suss? This morning, after we got her in Lester's Uncle Mark's big automobile, I says to her, I says, 'Mama, you sure it ain't too much?' Like her old self for a minute, Mrs. Suss, she hit me on the arm. 'Go 'way,' she said; 'on my grandchild's engagement day anything should be too much?' Here, waiter, get these two ladies some salad. Good measure, too. Over there by the window, Mrs. Suss. Help yourselves."

"Mama, 'sh-h-h! the waiters know what to do."

Mrs. Coblenz turned back, the flush warm to her face.

"Say, for an old friend I can be my own self."

"Can we break the receiving-line now, Lester honey, and go down with everybody? The Sinsheimers and their crowd over there by themselves, we ought to show we appreciate their coming."

Mr. Goldmark twisted high in his collar, cupping her small bare elbow in his hand.

"That's what I say, lovey; let's break. Come, Mother Coblenz, let's step down on high society's corns."

"Lester!"

"You and Selene go down with the crowd, Lester. I want to take gramaw to rest for a while before we go home. The manager says we can have room fifty-six by the elevator for her to rest in."

"Get her some newspapers, ma, and I brought her a wreath down to keep her quiet. It's wrapped in her shawl."

Her skirts delicately lifted, Miss Coblenz stepped down off the dais. With her cloud of gauze-scarf enveloping her, she was like a tulle-clouded "Springtime," done in the key of Botticelli.

"Oop-si-lah, lovey-dovey!" said Mr. Goldmark, tilting her elbow for the downward step.

"Oop-si-lay, dovey-lovey!" said Miss Coblenz, relaxing to the support.

Gathering up her plentiful skirts, Mrs. Coblenz stepped off, too, but back toward the secluded chair beside the potted hydrangea. A fine line of pain, like a cord tightening, was binding her head, and she put up two fingers to each temple, pressing down the throb.

"Mrs. Coblenz, see what I got for you!" She turned, smiling. "You don't look like you need salad and green ice-cream. You look like you needed what I wanted—a cup of coffee."

"Aw, Mr. Haas—now where in the world—Aw, Mr. Haas!"

With a steaming cup outheld and carefully out of collision with the crowd, Mr. Haas unflapped a napkin with his free hand, inserting his foot in the rung of a chair and dragging it toward her.

"Now," he cried, "sit and watch me take care of you!"

There comes a tide in the affairs of men when the years lap softly, leaving no particular inundations on the celebrated sands of time. Between forty and fifty, that span of years which begin the first slight gradations from the apex of life, the gray hair, upstanding like a thick-bristled brush off Mr. Haas's brow, had not so much as whitened, or the slight paunchiness enhanced even the moving-over of a button. When Mr. Haas smiled, his mustache, which ended in a slight but not waxed flourish, lifted to reveal a white-and-gold smile of the artistry of careful dentistry, and when, upon occasion, he threw back his head to laugh, the roof of his mouth was his own.

He smiled now, peering through gold-rimmed spectacles attached by a chain to a wire-encircled left ear.

"Sit," he cried, "and let me serve you!"

Standing there with a diffidence which she could not crowd down, Mrs. Coblenz smiled through closed lips that would pull at the corners.

"The idea, Mr. Haas—going to all that trouble!"

"'Trouble'! she says. After two hours' handshaking in a swallow-tail, a man knows what real trouble is!"

She stirred around and around the cup, supping up spoonfuls gratefully.

"I'm sure much obliged. It touches the right spot."

He pressed her down to the chair, seating himself on the low edge of the dais.

"Now you sit right there and rest your bones."

"But my mother, Mr. Haas. Before it's time for the ride home she must rest in a quiet place."

"My car'll be here and waiting five minutes after I telephone."

"You—sure have been grand, Mr. Haas!"

"I shouldn't be grand yet to my—Let's see—what relation is it I am to you?"

"Honest, you're a case, Mr. Haas—always making fun!"

"My poor dead sister's son marries your daughter. That makes you my—nothing-in-law."

"Honest, Mr. Haas, if I was around you, I'd get fat laughing."

"I wish you was."

"Selene would have fits. 'Never get fat, mama,' she says, 'if you don't want—'"

"I don't mean that."

"What?"

"I mean I wish you was around me."

She struck him then with her fan, but the color rose up into the mound of her carefully piled hair.

"I always say I can see where Lester gets his comical ways. Like his uncle, that boy keeps us all laughing."

"Gad! look at her blush! I know women your age would give fifty dollars a blush to do it that way."

She was looking away again, shoulders heaving to silent laughter, the blush still stinging.

"It's been so—so long, Mr. Haas, since I had compliments made to me. You make me feel so—silly."

"I know it, you nice, fine woman, you; and it's a darn shame!"

"Mr.—Haas!"

"I mean it. I hate to see a fine woman not get her dues. Anyways, when she's the finest woman of them all!"

"I—the woman that lives to see a day like this—her daughter the happiest girl in the world, with the finest boy in the world—is getting her dues, all right, Mr. Haas."

"She's a fine girl, but she ain't worth her mother's little finger-nail."

"Mr.—Haas!"

"No, sir-ree!"

"I must be going now, Mr. Haas. My mother—"

"That's right. The minute a man tries to break the ice with this little lady, it's a freeze-out. Now what did I say so bad? In business, too. Never seen the like. It's like trying to swat a fly to come down on you at the right minute. But now, with you for a nothing-in-law, I got rights."

"If—you ain't the limit, Mr. Haas!"

"Don't mind saying it, Mrs. C., and, for a bachelor, they tell me I'm not the worst judge in the world, but there's not a woman on the floor stacks up like you do."

"Well—of all things!"

"Mean it."

"My mother, Mr. Haas, she—"

"And if anybody should ask you if I've got you on my mind or not, well, I've already got the letters out on that little matter of the passports you spoke to me about. If there's a way to fix that up for you, and leave it to me to find it, I—"

She sprang now, trembling, to her feet, all the red of the moment receding.

"Mr. Haas, I—I must go now. My—mother—"

He took her arm, winding her in and out among crowded-out chairs behind the dais.

"I wish it to every mother to have a daughter like you, Mrs. C."

"No! No!" she said, stumbling rather wildly through the chairs. "No! No! No!"

He forged ahead, clearing her path of them.

Beside the potted hydrangea, well back and yet within an easy view, Mrs. Horowitz, her gilt armchair well cushioned for the occasion, and her black grenadine spread decently about her, looked out upon the scene, her slightly palsied head well forward.

"Mama, you got enough? You wouldn't have missed it, eh? A crowd of people we can be proud to entertain. Not? Come; sit quiet in another room for a while, and then Mr. Haas, with his nice big car, will drive us all home again. You know Mr. Haas, dearie—Lester's uncle that had us drove so careful in his fine car. You remember, dearie—Lester's uncle?"

Mrs. Horowitz looked up, her old face crackling to smile.

"My grandchild! My grandchild! She'm a fine one. Not? My grandchild! My grandchild!"

"You—mustn't mind, Mr. Haas. That's—the way she's done since—since she's—sick. Keeps repeating—"

"My grandchild! From a good mother and a bad father comes a good grandchild. My grandchild! She'm a good one. My—"

"Mama dearie, Mr. Haas is in a hurry. He's come to help me walk you into a little room to rest before we go home in Mr. Haas's big, fine auto. Where you can go and rest, mama, and read the newspapers. Come."

"My back—ach—my back!"

"Yes, yes, mama; we'll fix it. Up! So—la!"

They raised her by the crook of each arm, gently.

"So! Please, Mr. Haas, the pillows. Shawl. There!"

Around a rear hallway, they were almost immediately into a blank, staring hotel bedroom, fresh towels on the furniture-tops only enhancing its staleness.

"Here we are. Sit her here, Mr. Haas, in this rocker."

They lowered her, almost inch by inch, sliding down pillows, against the chair-back.

"Now, Shila's little mama want to sleep?"

"I got—no rest—no rest."

"You're too excited, honey; that's all."

"No rest."

"Here—here's a brand-new hotel Bible on the table, dearie. Shall Shila read it to you?"

"Aylorff—"

"Now, now, mama. Now, now; you mustn't! Didn't you promise Shila? Look! See, here's a wreath wrapped in your shawl for Shila's little mama to work on. Plenty of wreaths for us to take back. Work awhile, dearie, and then we'll get Selene and Lester, and, after all the nice company goes away, we'll go home in the auto."

"I begged he should keep in his hate—his feet in the—"

"I know! The papers! That's what little mama wants. Mr. Haas, that's what she likes better than anything—the evening papers."

"I'll go down and send 'em right up with a boy, and telephone for the car. The crowd's beginning to pour out now. Just hold your horses there, Mrs. C., and I'll have those papers up here in a jiffy."

He was already closing the door after him, letting in and shutting out a flare of music.

"See, mama, nice Mr. Haas is getting us the papers. Nice evening papers for Shila's mama." She leaned down into the recesses of the black grenadine, withdrawing from one of the pockets a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles, adjusting them with some difficulty to the nodding head. "Shila's—little mama! Shila's mama!"

"Aylorff, the littlest wreath for—Aylorff—Meine Kraentze—"

"Yes, yes."

"Mem Mann. Mein Suehn."

"'Shh-h-h, dearie!"

"Aylorff—der klenste Kranz far ihm!"

"'Shh-h-h, dearie! Talk English, like Selene wants. Wait till we get on the ship—the beautiful ship to take us back. Mama, see out the window! Look! That's the beautiful Forest Park, and this is the fine Hotel Walsingham just across. See out! Selene is going to have a flat on—"

"Sey hoben gestorben far Freiheit. Sey hoben—"

"There! That's the papers!"

To a succession of quick knocks, she flew to the door, returning with the folded evening editions under her arm.

"Now," she cried, unfolding and inserting the first of them into the quivering hands—"now, a shawl over my little mama's knees and we're fixed!"

With a series of rapid movements she flung open one of the black-cashmere shawls across the bed, folding it back into a triangle. Beside the table, bare except for the formal, unthumbed Bible, Mrs. Horowitz rattled out a paper, her near-sighted eyes traveling back and forth across the page.

Music from the ferned-in orchestra came in drifts, faint, not so faint. From somewhere, then immediately from everywhere—beyond, below, without, the fast shouts of newsboys mingling.

Suddenly and of her own volition, and with a cry that shot up through the room, rending it like a gash, Mrs. Horowitz, who moved by inches, sprang to her supreme height, her arms, the crooks forced out, flung up.

"My darlings—what died—for it! My darlings what died for it! My darlings—Aylorff, my husband!" There was a wail rose up off her words, like the smoke of incense curling, circling around her. "My darlings what died to make free!"

"Mama! Darling! Mama! Mr. Haas! Help! Mama! My God!"

"Aylorff—my husband—I paid with my blood to make free—my blood—. My son—my—own—" Immovable there, her arms flung up and tears so heavy that they rolled whole from her face down to the black grenadine, she was as sonorous as the tragic meter of an Alexandrine line; she was like Ruth, ancestress of heroes and progenitor of kings.

"My boy—my own! They died for it! Mein Mann! Mein Suehn!"

On her knees, frantic to press her down once more into the chair, terrified at the rigid immobility of the upright figure, Mrs. Coblenz paused then, too, her clasp falling away, and leaned forward to the open sheet of the newspaper, its black head-lines facing her:

RUSSIA FREE

BANS DOWN 100,000 SIBERIAN PRISONERS LIBERATED

In her ears a ringing silence, as if a great steel disk had clattered down into the depths of her consciousness. There on her knees, trembling seized her, and she hugged herself against it, leaning forward to corroborate her gaze.

MOST RIGID AUTOCRACY IN THE WORLD OVERTHROWN

RUSSIA REJOICES

"Mama! Mama! My God! Mama!"

"Home, Shila; home! My husband who died for it—Aylorff! Home now, quick! My wreaths! My wreaths!"

"O my God! Mama!"

"Home!"

"Yes, darling—yes—"

"My wreaths!"

"Yes, yes, darling; your wreaths. Let—let me think. Freedom! O my God! help me to find a way! O my God!"

"My wreaths!"

"Here, darling, here!"

From the floor beside her, the raffia wreath half in the making, Mrs. Coblenz reached up, pressing it flat to the heaving old bosom.

"There, darling, there!"

"I paid with my blood—"

"Yes, yes, mama; you—paid with your blood. Mama—sit, please. Sit and—let's try to think. Take it slow, darling; it's like we can't take it in all at once. I—We—Sit down, darling. You'll make yourself terrible sick. Sit down, darling; you—you're slipping."

"My wreaths—"

Heavily, the arm at the waist gently sustaining, Mrs. Horowitz sank rather softly down, her eyelids fluttering for the moment. A smile had come out on her face, and, as her head sank back against the rest, the eyes resting at the downward flutter, she gave out a long breath, not taking it in again.

"Mama! You're fainting!" She leaned to her, shaking the relaxed figure by the elbows, her face almost touching the tallow-like one with the smile lying so deeply into it. "Mama! My God! darling, wake up! I'll take you back. I'll find a way to take you. I'm a bad girl, darling, but I'll find a way to take you. I'll take you if—if I kill for it! I promise before God I'll take you. To-morrow—now—nobody can keep me from taking you. The wreaths, mama! Get ready the wreaths! Mama darling, wake up! Get ready the wreaths! The wreaths!" Shaking at that quiet form, sobs that were full of voice tearing raw from her throat, she fell to kissing the sunken face, enclosing it, stroking it, holding her streaming gaze closely and burningly against the closed lids. "Mama, I swear to God I'll take you! Answer me, mama! The bank-book—you've got it! Why don't you wake up, mama? Help!"

Upon that scene, the quiet of the room so raucously lacerated, burst Mr. Haas, too breathless for voice.

"Mr. Haas—my mother! Help—my mother! It's a faint, ain't it? A faint?"

He was beside her at two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists, laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the flesh that yielded so to touch.

"It's a faint, ain't it, Mr. Haas? Tell her I'll take her back. Wake her up, Mr. Haas! Tell her I'm a bad girl, but I—I'm going to take her back. Now! Tell her! Tell her, Mr. Haas, I've got the bank-book. Please! Please! O my God!"

He turned to her, his face working to keep down compassion.

"We must get a doctor, little lady."

She threw out an arm.

"No! No! I see! My old mother—my old mother—all her life a nobody—She helped—she gave it to them—my mother—a poor little widow nobody—She bought with her blood that freedom—she—"

"God! I just heard it down-stairs—it's the tenth wonder of the world. It's too big to take in. I was afraid—"

"Mama darling, I tell you, wake up! I'm a bad girl, but I'll take you back. Tell her, Mr. Haas, I'll take her back. Wake up, darling! I swear to God I'll take you!"

"Mrs. Coblenz, my—poor little lady, your mother don't need you to take her back. She's gone back where—where she wants to be. Look at her face, little lady. Can't you see she's gone back?"

"No! No! Let me go. Let me touch her. No! No! Mama darling!"

"Why, there wasn't a way, little lady, you could have fixed it for that poor—old body. She's beyond any of the poor fixings we could do for her. You never saw her face like that before. Look!"

"The wreaths—the wreaths!"

He picked up the raffia circle, placing it back again against the quiet bosom.

"Poor little lady!" he said. "Shila—that's left for us to do. You and me, Shila—we'll take the wreaths back for her."

"My darling—my darling mother! I'll take them back for you! I'll take them back for you!"

"We'll take them back for her—Shila."

"I'll—"

"We'll take them back for her—Shila."

"We'll take them back for you, mama. We'll take them back for you, darling!"

THE END