Finally Suzanna found her voice. "They're very nice, daddy," she said.

"Yes, they are very nice," he said. "See, you can turn them up. They're as soft as a kid glove."

"Well, since you've bought the shoes," said Mrs. Procter, "and probably at a very reasonable figure—" she paused, and Mr. Procter finished:

"Yes, they were only forty-eight cents, a remarkable bargain, I think."

"Remarkable," said Mrs. Procter, picking them up. "Why, I believe they're a handmade shoe! Well," she went on, "since the shoes are accounted for, I think if I have to I can quite easily manage the rest of the outfit."

Suzanna's heart sank lower. She only wondered miserably if her mother, seeing a piece of inexpensive goods of almost any shade, and finding a pattern easy to manage, would make up what she thought would do quite well for the Indian Drill costume. Then her thoughts returned to the shoes. Perhaps after all they wouldn't fit! She was enabled by that emancipating thought to turn a happier face to her father and again to thank him.

But alas, the shoes fitted perfectly.

"I think," said Suzanna desperately, "that perhaps they're a little bit too small—narrow, I mean."

"Do they hurt you?" asked her mother.

Suzanna had to confess that they didn't hurt.

"They certainly make your foot look very nice and slender," said her father.

Well, Suzanna thought miserably, she should have to wear them, and in that belief all interest in the Indian Drill left her. She simply couldn't, she felt, take her lead on the eventful day wearing those shoes. Every eye in the audience, she knew, would be fixed upon them, so different from those of the other girls, so terribly old-fashioned, as instinctively she sensed them to be.

Mrs. Procter carefully wrapped the bargains in the original tissue paper. She was happy in the thought that her little daughter was provided with a pretty and appropriate pair of dancing shoes.

But it was very perfunctorily that Suzanna went through the ensuing rehearsals at school. Her spirits were not lifted even when Miss Smithson announced that the costumes were to be obtained through a masquerader at the small cost of twenty-five cents for each pupil. But at length, the child's natural persevering force had its way, and she set her mind to studying the question of how to avoid wearing the unsuitable shoes and still preserve her father's confidence in his own good judgment. Usually she asked no help, working alone on the problems which assailed her, but suddenly the thought of her friend Drusilla came to her. She would ask Drusilla what she thought about the matter.



CHAPTER XII

DRUSILLA'S REMINISCENCES

One afternoon immediately after school, Suzanna, taking Maizie with her, went to call on Drusilla. Twice since her first visit in July she had gone to the little home, but on both occasions Drusilla had been ill, unable to see anyone. But today the pleasant faced maid admitted the children.

"Go right up to the attic," she said. "Mrs. Bartlett is there looking over some old trunks."

In the attic, a tiny place with slanting roof and unfinished walls, the children found Mrs. Bartlett, sitting on the floor beside a huge, overflowing trunk. Old-fashioned dresses, high-heeled satin slippers, dancing programs, painted fans, were all heaped together.

"We've come to see you, Drusilla," said Suzanna at once. "I've been twice before, but you didn't know it. This is my sister, Maizie. I've got a very important question to ask you."

Drusilla rose from the floor. "I'm glad to see you both. I've often thought of you, Suzanna. Close the lid of that trunk and sit on it and your little sister Maizie can sit in that old easy chair in the corner. That is, if you want to stay up here in the attic."

Suzanna looked about her. The attic was rather sad-looking, she thought, not full of its own importance as the one at home, but still, very interesting. Old portraits hung on the slanting walls. In corners were piles of old furniture looking strangely lifelike in the shadows.

"We'd rather stay up here, Drusilla," she said. "And we'll stay a long time with you, if you like."

"Very good," said Drusilla. She drew forth a low rocker and seated herself.

Suzanna suddenly remembered her manners. "Perhaps we shouldn't have come today anyway," she said. "You were busy with your trunk when we came up."

"I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many years," said Drusilla. "There's a dress in there," she said, "that I wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the ocean."

"A big city?" asked Maizie. "Not like Anchorville?"

"A big city," returned Drusilla. "You see that glass case in the corner? Go and look at it."

Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table stood the glass case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, all made of wax.

"That came from the city across the water," said Drusilla. "It was given to my grandmother by our old herb woman."

The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to Drusilla. "What's an old herb woman?" asked Maizie, interestedly.

"Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a canal. Many is the time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a pawn shop with three tarnished golden balls above the door."

"A pawn shop?" The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of shop.

"A shop," said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, "to which you could bring anything, from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a little interest.

"The old pawn shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop, my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quantities of black hair braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think always of a crown.

"The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old curios—old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all over the shop; to open quaint cases, to go upstairs and out upon an old gallery and to lift from their drawers silken crapes, and to find, buried away, whispering sea-shells and crystal bottles, and irregular pieces of blue-veined marble and alabaster. Oh, the happy, thrilling hours I spent in that place! My grandmother told me that scholars came from every part of the country to see this tucked-away, historic old pawn shop."

Drusilla paused, but in a moment to the children's relief she went on: "Then on a quite busy street, back this side of the canal, the side we lived on, was a large place called an ovenry. And there we sent our bread to be baked."

The children's eyes widened.

"Yes," went on Drusilla, "we put our dough to rise at home, made it into little loaves, pricked our initial—or some other distinguishing mark—on top when it lay in its pans, and then a big red-faced man with a wagon drawn by a donkey called for our bread. Once my grandmother let me ride with him, and I stayed all afternoon in his ovenry, though the fire from the big ovens made it uncomfortably hot. I watched him and his helpers put the pans of bread on big shovels and heave them into yawning caves of flames. When they were finished, another red-faced man delivered them baked brown, and smoking, to the customers. We paid a penny a loaf for having our bread baked."

"Oh, and that saved you buying so much coal, didn't it?" asked Maizie. "I wish we had an ovenry in Anchorville."

"Yes," said Drusilla, "I think, myself, some of these old-fashioned ideas were economical."

"There isn't a pawn shop anywhere near, is there?" asked Suzanna. She was thinking about the shoes and what a blessing it would be to dispose of them.

"I don't believe so," Drusilla answered. "Anyway, there couldn't be another like that wonderful shop of my youth."

There ensued a silence. Suddenly leaning forward, Suzanna began very earnestly:

"Drusilla, I have a very important question to ask you. Which would you rather do, be honest or suffer?"

"Be honest or suffer?" repeated Drusilla. "I don't quite understand."

"Well, you see, it's this way," said Suzanna. "Now, Maizie, I see you're listening with your eyes wide open, and I want to tell you now that you mustn't say anything to father of what I'm going to tell Drusilla." Having delivered this ultimatum, she went on and told of the Indian Drill and of the costumes, and then of her father's recent purchase of the shoes. "I can't tell daddy that the shoes would be different from everybody's else," she said, "because it will hurt his feelings. But, oh, Drusilla! My heart jumps into my throat when I think of wearing those shoes so different from everyone else's."

"The shoes cost forty-eight cents," elaborated Maizie, "and so you can see Suzanna has to wear them whether she likes them or not."

"Yes," said Suzanna, "forty-eight cents is very near to half a dollar and we can't afford to lose that. I thought, Drusilla, that you could give me some advice. That's all I want, just that you tell me which is best, to be honest or to suffer. You told me once about the little silver chain and that has helped me a lot."

Drusilla looked puzzled. "The silver chain?" she asked.

"Yes, don't you remember that day you were queen and told me about the chain?" asked Suzanna.

In a second a remarkable change came over the old lady. She rose to her feet. Then she turned to Suzanna, her shoulders straight and her head held high.

"My crown," she demanded. "Is that to be lifted from me in these the full years of my queenhood?"

"I've never seen you with a crown on," said Suzanna.

"Enough, serf!" cried the queen haughtily. "Procure me my crown." Suzanna looked about her. An old dried-up Christmas wreath hanging on a rafter attracted her attention. Quickly she procured it and held it out to Drusilla. "Here is your crown, Queen," she said. And then, her voice changing, she said: "You'd better let me put it on, Drusilla, it's liable to crumble if you're not careful. Lower your head, please."

The old lady did so and Suzanna placed the crown upon the silver hair.

"Now," said the old lady, "if you have sought me to gain advice, repeat your question, that I may answer in a manner worthy my exalted station."

"Well," said Suzanna for the third time, "I want to know whether it's best to be honest or to suffer?"

"What shall be your course if you are honest?" asked the queen.

Suzanna pondered. "I think I'll tell daddy, perhaps tonight," she said at last, "that to wear the shoes will hurt my feelings dreadfully; that I tremble when I think of being the only girl in the drill without low shoes with two straps. Something like moccasins. If I tell daddy this, then I'll be honest."

"And if you decide to suffer?"

"Then I'll wear the shoes at the drill and from the time I put them on till the drill is over, I'll be full of pain. I'll know that everybody will be just looking at my feet, and I'll not enjoy the dance one bit."

The queen knit her brows. Then her answer came: "Be not honest in the way you describe, neither suffer."

"But, Drusilla," Suzanna objected, "I don't understand."

"And can you not be brave?" asked the queen with a note of scorn in her voice. "Is it left to one who feels the time approaching when she will be deposed from her throne and all she holds dear, alone to have courage?" She looked straight into Suzanna's dark eyes. "Your father knows joy in thinking he has given you your heart's desire. Why, then, hurt him by telling him that the shoes are not your desire? Why not, with head held high, lead the dance you speak of, and forget shoes, and remember only the movement of the dance, the lilt of the music?"

"Is that bravery?" asked Suzanna.

"The greatest bravery," returned the queen, "will be to say to yourself, 'Am I so poor a maid that I cannot by the very beauty of my dancing keep the eyes of the watchers lifted clear above my shoes? For shoes, what are shoes? Leather and wood. Inanimate, unthinking stuff! They are not worth one heart pang, one moment of misery to me or mine. But I, I am alive. I can see and think and understand. I can go so joyously through the mazes of the dance that the watchers may forget their sordid cares.'"

Suzanna, listening, was carried away. She cried with eager response: "Why the night of the Indian Drill I can believe I am a fairy, dancing over snow-topped mountains, and singing, flying clear up into the clouds!"

"You might fall, Suzanna," said Maizie, "you know you haven't wings."

But on this occasion Suzanna was not to be recalled to earth, and besides in her queen's interested, understanding face, she felt a quick fellowship to the spirit that dwelt within her.

And then breaking harshly into the wonder of this moment came the tinkle, tinkle of the electric bell.

"Oh," cried Maizie, "someone is coming."

"I shall brook no intruders," cried the queen.

"No matter who it is?" asked Suzanna.

"No matter who it is. I desire to be alone with my court. However, you can peep over the banisters and see who dares come thus upon us."

Suzanna went to the top of the stairs. The maid was ushering in a lady and a boy.

"Go right upstairs," Suzanna heard the maid say. "Mrs. Bartlett's in the attic with two of the Procter children."

The visitors appeared at the top of the stairs and paused to glance in.

The lady was beautifully dressed, quite exquisitely, from the dainty little toque upon her haughty head to her small gray cloth shoes. Her eyes, flashing from pansy shades to lightest blue, were cold. Her white skin seemed to hold no possibility of color. Yet, even as she stood, the milk of it turned to rose when Drusilla gazed at her with no warmth of recognition in her glance.

The boy, about twelve, Suzanna surmised correctly, stood forward. There was some of his mother's haughtiness in his bearing, a great deal of her beauty. But added to both, a rare, high look as though always he were seeking what lay beyond his grasp, and perhaps his comprehension. He seemed altogether like a child whose emotional values did not stand clear. He gazed half prayerfully at his grandmother, as though asking and bestowing at the same time.

Breaking into the embarrassing silence, Suzanna spoke:

"Drusilla has her crown on," she said. "You see, she's a queen now, and she's been answering some questions of mine."

The lady in the doorway looked at Suzanna meditatively. Then she spoke directly to Drusilla.

"May I come in, mother?" she asked. "You see I've brought Graham."

Drusilla began: "Court was in session. However, I shall be glad to have you remain." The boy, who had remained quiet, now spoke.

"Oh, bully, mother; grandmother's playing again. I want to stay."

But his mother put out a detaining hand as he attempted to enter the attic.

"No—we can't stay now—" She spoke directly again to Drusilla. "We'll come again—when you are more—yourself."

In a moment she was gone down the stairs, leaving after her a soft fragrance. The boy obediently followed her. In the hall below she encountered the maid. She whispered a few hurried words before taking her departure.

The maid went up immediately into the attic.

Drusilla was again talking eloquently while Suzanna and Maizie stood listening spellbound.

"I think," said the maid, breaking in quietly but firmly, "that you little girls had better go home now. Mrs. Bartlett is tired and I want her to lie down."

She approached the queen. "Come, Mrs. Bartlett," she said, "you must rest now." She raised her hand as though to remove the crown of faded leaves.

"What means this sacrilege?" cried the queen, stepping backward.

"She likes to wear her crown when she's a queen," said Suzanna, much distressed.

"But she can't lie down in her crown, you know, little girl, it will hurt her."

"Well, that's true, Drusilla," Suzanna conceded. "Will you put your head down and I'll take the crown off very carefully and we'll put it away for another day."

The queen obediently lowered her silver head to Suzanna. Suzanna very carefully removed the wreath and hung it on its old nail.

"I am tired," said the old lady, now in a voice that trembled a little. "But you'll come again soon, won't you?" she asked, appealing to Suzanna.

"Yes, just as soon as I can," said Suzanna. "Come, Maizie. Good-bye, Drusilla, and thank you very much for helping me."

Drusilla brightened. "That's nice, to know that I can still help someone," she said.



CHAPTER XIII

MRS. GRAHAM WOODS BARTLETT

The great house stood on a hilltop quite two miles from the station, and cut into the immense iron door standing guard to the grounds was the name "Bartlett Villa."

Here for a small part of the year the Graham Woods Bartletts lived. The family consisted of mother, father, and son, named for his father. In the city another house as large and more palatial received the family when they tired of the country home.

Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett held large interests in the Massey Steel Mills. That he might be on the ground part of the time he had built Bartlett Villa. In his heart he loved the small town. It was like a retreat to him to come back to its quiet after feverish hours spent in the crowded city. Here he seemed to recall in part a few of his vanished dreams—those dreams so bright, so well-nigh impossible of fulfillment, which as a young man fresh from college he had cherished. While young, he met and loved the girl he married. That she had visions he perfectly believed. That her visions were unworthy no power then could have made him believe. She came from an impecunious family whose lineage was older and greater than his. How she could have thought the high-browed, sensitive-faced young man the one who could fulfill her grasping desires is not to be fathomed. She had believed so, and he did bring to pass all her aspirations. That in doing so he killed his finest ideals mattered not.

Young Graham, too, was always glad when the time came for a stay at Bartlett Villa in Anchorville. He loved the big upstanding elms; loved the many gardens, and the flaunting flowers. He loved the two people who belonged properly in the environs of Bartlett Villa—old Nancy, who had been his mother's nurse and his own, and David, the gardener, with his little daughter Daphne.

Nancy, old, with hard rosy cheeks, was still so real. She worked and sang, loved and sometimes resented on behalf of those whom she served. Often, when quite a little boy, Graham would seek her in the old nursery of the city home and climb into her lap, rest his curly head against her loving breast, and sometimes contentedly fall asleep.

He never so cuddled with his mother, no matter how fervent the longings that filled his heart. She was always finely dressed; and her eyes were never for him alone. They were fixed on some distant and glittering goal, quite beyond the boy's understanding.

Then there was David, big of stature, big of mind. David, given over to many long, silent periods, because David had lost a loved and cherished one.

There were times when David would take Graham with him on long rambles, and then he would talk. He knew everything about the birds, their habits, their peculiarities, their fears, and their courage. He put into Graham a great love for the little creatures. Often together near a nest they would stand, and, scarce breathing, watch the first lesson given by a mother bird to a frightened young one.

"She's greater, that mother, than some humans," David said once, when they were on their way home.

"Why?" asked Graham, interestedly.

"Well," said David, slowly, "we most of us hold on too long when it's time for those we love to try their wings."

"You wouldn't hold on, would you, David?" asked Graham, his boyish eyes upturned in perfect faith to his friend.

"I might, Graham; human nature is weak and wants always its own."

Upon reaching home Graham would ask: "Will you have time to go riding this afternoon, David?"

And David would answer: "Perhaps, my lad, if there's not too much work in the gardens."

Once Graham asked: "Why do you do such work, David? You could be in the city making lots of money." Thus Graham, who through heritage had been innoculated with that thought, that money meant everything.

And David had turned with a swift gesture: "Why should I mistreat my spirit, kill my brightest self trying for money, young Graham? Here among my flowers, working in the soil, I find time to think."

Graham looked strangely at David. Time to think! On what? Well he knew that David would tell him some day, and then he would weigh in his own mind the question of whether it were wise to work hard at something that took all your time in order to make lots of money; or to work at something that while you worked gave you time to think and grow.

David had an uncanny way of knowing another's thoughts. "It's not altogether what you work at, lad," he said, "it's what your ideals of life are." And turning, he left Graham to ponder.

On the day that he and his mother had paid the visit to his grandmother in the attic, the boy's mind was deeply concerned with the scene he had witnessed in his grandmother's attic. He envied the Procter children, since there grew in his imagination the treasure a grandmother could be. She probably knew "bully" stories of long-ago days. Certainly as she stood, crowned, she seemed the best sort of a playfellow, since she could pretend as well as any child.

His mother drove him home and then went to pay a call in a near town. He had gone directly to his own room. A telegrapher's outfit, in which he was then greatly interested, needed his attention. He was anxious to resume work on it; still his undermind, even as he drew forth the machine and began to work, was busy.

Suddenly he remembered the time last year when his mother had made elaborate preparations for an extended sojourn in the South. They were then in their city home. He had ardently wished that she would decide to take him with her, but the thought evidently did not occur to her. He had said good-bye to her with a strange, empty feeling at his heart.

And then quite unexpectedly she had returned, her contemplated stay cut enchantingly short. She had talked with him, taken long walks with him, even accompanied him to several ball games.

For a month she had been a friend, a good friend interested in boyish sports, in active games, and once in an open moment she had asked him if he had ever been lonely.

He answered, not wishing to hurt her: "Sometimes, when you stayed for months in Italy. But I was only a very small boy then. Father had to be away most of the time too, and the tutor you got for me wouldn't allow me to talk with other children until he knew all about where their fathers and mothers came from and how much money they had."

She was touched. She meant then to see that her boy should have more of the normal boy life of fun and roughness.

But gradually her old desire for social leadership pressed in on her. And it took all her time and energy to dress, to entertain, to outdo her social rivals. And Graham went his own way again, only wishing that it was not necessary for both father and mother to be so occupied with outside interests that they had little time for their one child.

After a time he left his machine to look out of the window, and as he stood, he saw his mother. She had left her small runabout, and David was leading the horse to the stables.

He saw her enter the house. In a moment he heard her talking in her sweet voice to one of the servants before she mounted the stairs to her own room. She would then, Graham knew, be in the hands of her maid for a long time, since she was giving a formal dinner party that evening.

When the shadows were lengthening Graham left his room and wandered aimlessly around the house. Finally he reached the kitchen, where he sat for a time, watching the imported French chef's noble efforts for the coming dinner, efforts that must result in the wide proclamation of Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett as an original hostess. But in the kitchen it was made manifest that Graham's presence was not welcome. At last, feeling this truth, he left.

The maid, coming from his mother's room and meeting him in the hall, told him that his dinner was to be served at six in his own room. "Your mother thought you'd like that," she finished.

Graham nodded without speaking and went on once more to his own room. He felt lonely, dispirited. Old Nancy, to whom he might have turned, had gone to her old home to visit some grandchildren. David, he knew, would be very busy.

At six the boy's dinner was brought, and with the hearty appetite of boyhood he ate. Afterwards he read a little, and then, feeling tired, he concluded to retire. But he did not go to sleep at once. Occasionally he heard interesting sounds from below, music from a string orchestra, laughter of women, and the bass voices of men.

At nine o'clock he was still lying awake when he heard a little running step outside his door. Out of an impulse he called softly, "Mother."

Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett, on her way to her private safe for a piece of jade she wished to show one of her guests, paused at the call. Then she pushed open Graham's door, which was slightly ajar, and went in. Graham sat up. By the glow of a small electric light near his bed he could plainly see his mother. She was a beautiful vision in her soft white gown, quite untouched by any color, her hair piled high upon her small, finely shaped head.

"Did you call me, Graham?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "I wanted to see you all dressed."

She went quickly and sat on the edge of the bed. "Did they serve you a nice dinner, Graham?" she asked.

He nodded. "Very nice," he answered.

"I thought you'd be asleep long ago," she said. "Otherwise I should have looked in on you."

"I couldn't sleep," he answered. Then impulsively: "Mother, I know you have to go downstairs again soon, but I've been thinking so much of grandmother. Wouldn't it be possible to have her come to live here with us? We've got such a big house, and she must be very lonely."

She drew herself a little away from him. "Perhaps I haven't explained to you, Graham," she said, "that your grandmother is given to periods of hallucinations. That is, she has peculiar fancies, one of them being that she thinks herself a queen."

"Well, does it hurt if she does think she's a queen?" asked the boy.

"In this way it does. It's not pleasant to have in close proximity one who isn't what is called just normal. I think she is much better cared for as she is and in her own home. You'll admit it would be very unpleasant if she lived here, and appeared before guests in one of her unnatural moods."

"But she is lonely," persisted the boy, sticking to the one line of thought that had remained with him all afternoon, and had aroused his mind to dwell insistently upon his grandmother. "You don't mind, mother, do you, then since she can't come here, if I go to see her often?" He hesitated before continuing: "Father told me he wished I would, as he hasn't the time to do so."

"Of course, you may go to see her, Graham, if you like. I didn't know you cared so much."

She rose from the bed and walked away to the window, looking through its leaded panes to where she knew lay the broad road leading out into the country with farm houses and plowed fields. After a moment she turned to gaze at the little lad who still sat up in his bed; who still regarded her with wide eyes very much like her own, but holding a depth and a promise that hers did not seem to hold.

"Perhaps it's not the proper time to tell you now, Graham," she said, "but I think I might as well do so. I'm making arrangements to leave for Italy some time soon."

"To be gone long, mother?" asked the boy.

"Well, for three months anyway. I met some interesting people there on my last trip and they have invited me to pay them a prolonged visit," she said.

Graham did not answer at first. Then: "I suppose you'd better go downstairs now, mother," he said.

His mother left the window. Passing the bed she once more paused and looked down at him.

"Well, little son," she said at last, "good night. I've been up here an outrageous time." She put her arms around his small shoulders and drew him to her.

But for the first time in his short life she felt no response in her child. Indeed, she recognized his withdrawal from her, more poignant in its effect upon her because it was unconscious on his part. In that one moment the instinct of motherhood leapt full within her, a sudden bewildering emotion, totally new to her in its aliveness, its vividness. And then cold truth swept in on her that by some act she had wiped from his young heart in one moment his ideal of her.

She sank on her knees beside his bed, realizing dimly how great a crown his love had been. After an appreciable length of time, his hand crept out and rested a second lightly on her arm, and at the touch she raised her head. "I've disappointed you, Graham," she said. He did not answer. She waited, and then as he was still silent she rose. She shook her unwonted mood from her and her face hardened into its habitual brilliance.

"Good night, Graham," she said and went away.



CHAPTER XIV

THE STRAY DOG

Miss Smithson had had years of experience with children. She knew their sensitiveness, their capacity for suffering through those incidents which adults term trifles.

She had questioned Suzanna with much adroit delicacy concerning the shoes, and had elicited the story of the father's purchase. Though she read correctly the child's real shrinking from the thought of being the cynosure of many amused eyes, she felt herself helpless.

That one odd pair of shoes in the company of participating children! In imagination Miss Smithson visualized the unsuccessful efforts of their owner to hide them, to find her place in the background. The kind-hearted teacher really suffered in her anticipation of Suzanna's pain.

So when the great night arrived and the music sounded the approach of the Indian maidens, Miss Smithson, sitting in the front row beside Suzanna's parents, kept her eyes steadfastly lowered. At length, not hearing the expected titters from children in the audience, she found her courage and looked up. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Suzanna's face and rested there.

For pictured there in place of depression, self-pity, troubling self-consciousness, she found sparkle and joy. Miss Smithson gasped in astonishment and relief. With perfect abandon Suzanna moved through the dance; she seemed as one quite set apart from her companions; and so she was.

All that Drusilla had told her lived with her, inspiring her, lifting her beyond mere mortals. She might have been frolicing upon a cloud in her little bare feet, so far away from her consciousness was the thought of the shoes.

The dance ended, and with flushed cheeks and heart beating happily, Suzanna took her seat. The applause lasted a long time.

Then came a recitation and a piano solo given by a greatly embarrassed boy, though certainly a greatly talented one. Suzanna recognizing his anguish felt very sorry for him. She wished he had had a Drusilla to advise him, to make him see that he was for the time greater than his audience. That he had music in his soul. She understood now that the greatest gift was to forget yourself and love your art so much that it reigned supreme.

Then looking out at the people seated before her, she recognized that they were kind. That they had come not to criticize, but to enjoy and to acclaim. She felt growing within her heart a great love for all humanity.

Her eyes sought out her father's. Just in front he sat, looking up at her, his eyes filled with pride. She had made him happy. Her heart was very full.

Her eyes after a time went again over the audience. And behind her father sat a boy, the one she had seen at Drusilla's. His eyes seemed to be searching her face. She smiled at him and he smiled in return.

The evening was over. Suzanna was down in the audience. "Did you like the dance, daddy?" she asked.

"It was beautiful," he answered with gratifying response. "I was very proud of my little girl—and the shoes—I was so glad you could have them—they were the prettiest in the drill."

"I think they were, too," Suzanna answered, with real truth.

Out in the street she saw the boy. He was standing near the gate of the school yard, by his side a tall, dark young man.

"How do you do?" said Suzanna.

He snatched his hat from his head. "Oh, I liked your dance," he said. "This is my tutor," he finished.

"How do you do," said Suzanna politely to the young man. She wondered what a tutor was. Then to the boy: "Drusilla's your grandmother, isn't she?"

"Yes; do you live in this town?"

"Yes, right down that road. Your big house was closed for three years, wasn't it—since I was a little girl of five. That's why we haven't seen one another, I suppose." Then: "How did you think of coming to the Indian Drill?"

"Why, one of the school trustees had to see my father on business and he spoke about the entertainment. I thought I'd like to see it."

"Well, I'm glad you came. Good-bye."

A carriage drew up. The boy and his companion stepped into it and were driven off.

"That's young Graham Woods Bartlett," said Mrs. Procter as they started home. "They live in the big house on the top of the hill. This is the first time it's been open for some years."

"And Drusilla's his grandmother," said Suzanna. "He's an awful nice boy."

"His father and old John Massey are business associates," put in Mr. Procter.

"Such a fine big house to be occupied only a few months of the year, and then not every year," put in Mrs. Procter. "And they rarely stay so late in the season as they're staying this year—way into October."

"I'll take Maizie and Peter and go and see him tomorrow," said Suzanna.

"Oh, Suzanna, I don't believe—" began Mrs. Procter. Then sensing immediately that her small daughter would be totally unable to understand social distinctions, she did not finish her sentence.

So it was that the next afternoon right after school, Suzanna, who never lost time in carrying out a resolve, prepared for her visit.

"I wonder where Peter is?" Mrs. Procter asked.

As if in answer to his mother's question, Peter opened the kitchen door. He wore primarily a guilty expression. His hat was on one side of his head, the suit which two seasons before he had outgrown, was short in the legs, tight as to chest, and there was a very symphony of entreaty in his eyes. By a frayed string he held a stray dog, the fourth one since spring.

Mrs. Procter looked at him sternly. As mothers do, she took in with one glance Peter's prayerful attitude and the appealing one of the shrinking animal.

"You take that dog right away and lose it!" she commanded.

"Oh, mother," began the small boy entering the kitchen, the dog perforce entering also. "He followed me all the way home and we're awful good friends already. Can't he stay?"

"Not one minute," returned Mrs. Procter. She regarded the animal scornfully. "He's not anybody's dog," she said. "He's simply a stray, and I'm tired of feeding every stray dog that comes into the neighborhood."

Peter turned reluctantly away. "He'll be awful lonely out there," he said, "and he's hungry, too. No lady ever thinks a dog eats. Can't I give him a bone or something before I turn him loose?"

"Take him out on the back porch and give him that soup bone left from supper last night. And then I don't want to see him again. Now, Peter, this time I mean it."

Peter made one last effort. "He's a fine breed, his roof is black," he said. "He'd make an awful good watch dog."

"Well, we really don't need a watch dog," his mother answered, and half smiled.

Maizie, advancing from the dining-room, stared at the intruder on his way out.

"Oh, but this dog has hair, mother," she cried. "You remember one of the others hadn't."

"Hair, or no hair," Mrs. Procter returned determinedly, "that dog is not going to stay in this house. I've had enough of stray animals to last me for quite awhile."

Peter stood holding the rope and still looking at his mother. But his hopeful expression, brought on by Maizie's words, was fast ebbing.

"Hurry up," said Mrs. Procter. "Take him away."

"Can't he stay for one night, mother?"

Suzanna, silent during the colloquy, now spoke.

"Maybe we can find another home for him, Peter. We were just going over to Graham Bartlett's, and perhaps he'd keep the dog. We'll ask his mother," she said.

Peter brightened a trifle at that. He really wanted more than anything in the world to keep that friendly dog. But if he was not to be allowed to do so, finding a good home for it was the next best thing.

So away the children started. It was a long walk, but the October day was cool and exhilarating. The children kicked the fallen leaves before them, and once Peter gave chase to his dog. Maizie sang little tunes, and Suzanna felt new wonderments rising within her at the beauty of the world.

They came at last to the Bartlett home, but no one was about, only several carriages stood in the road. Suzanna swung the big gate wide and with the children following her, and the dog held in Peter's firm grasp, she came to the house, mounted the steps and seeing the carved front door wide open, they all walked in. In the empty hall with the high ceilings they stood a moment embarrassed.

From a side room came sounds of laughter and soft voices. Suzanna turned. Heavy Persian rugs hung at the entrance to this room and Suzanna hesitated one moment. She wished someone were about to direct her. But alas, at this critical moment the hallman had escaped kitchenward. It was Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett's at-home day, and the function in full blast, and as his services might not be required for perhaps half an hour he had flown, believing discovery could not fall upon him.

So Suzanna, Maizie, Peter and the dog stepped within the gorgeous room.

Soft music came enchantingly from a hidden orchestra, ladies beautifully gowned and bejeweled stood about in graceful postures. Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett attired in a flame-colored velvet gown with a wonderful satin-lined train hanging straight from her shoulders, stood near a table at which two very pretty girls were serving little cups of tea and dainty cakes.

Suzanna, Maizie, and Peter holding tight the frayed rope with the hungry-looking dog on one end, gazed awe stricken at the fairylike scene. At length Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett turned and beheld her late guests.

The children stood irresolute; some expression in Mrs. Bartlett's face halted their advance. That look made Suzanna strangely self-conscious. Maizie was undeniably shy, and Peter with dread at his heart for fear Jerry (a quickly bestowed name that the dog had learned immediately to answer to) might not act in a gentlemanly fashion when he should pass the tea table. With all these different emotions in their hearts, the children finally started across the beautiful room. The ladies fell back from the dog lest in his passage he might touch their gowns, and all gazed in wonder at the small cavalcade. When at last the children stood before Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett, Suzanna spoke, broke into the dead silence of the room, for even the orchestra had stopped its music.



"We thought you might like a dog," began Suzanna. "He's a very nice dog and very loving, although if I'm to be honest, I can't say he's a good-looking dog." She felt her courage ebbing at the icy stillness which greeted her statement.

For a long time Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett remained speechless, and as the dog once had looked at Mrs. Procter, so he looked imploringly at her who might eventually be his new mistress. Little Maizie, moved to a show of bravery for Peter's sake, spoke up:

"We've only got a little house, and you've got a big one, so we thought you wouldn't mind."

"And," concluded Peter, "he really is a fine dog. You can buy a nice collar for him and maybe cut his tail—" Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett made a little wry face—"and you'd be surprised to see how elegant he'll look."

A laugh rang out from one end of the room. It came from a fine-looking old lady who stood near the window surrounded, it would seem by admiring satellites, and at the little musical sound Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett's face cleared magically, for the stately old lady was a very important personage to all present, envied usually too, and if this little incident seemed to amuse her then the matter was beautifully altered. So Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett found her voice. "Go out into the grounds and see the gardener. If he can find a place for the animal, let him keep it."

The children felt themselves dismissed. On the way out Suzanna kept her gaze quite away from the table with its alluring load of dainties. But Maizie paused an infinitesimal fraction of a second and let her eyes stray over the fascinating cakes, the glasses of pink ices, and the Maraschino cherries and nuts and white candies. But it was Peter who neither looked aside nor paused, but as he went by the table he addressed the ceiling.

"My dog's very fond of cakes," he said. "But mother says dogs can do without cakes, especially stray dogs."

One of the pretty girls laughed merrily, and sweeping from a silver plate a handful of cakes she thrust them into Peter's hands. "Thank you," he said simply. And then the children left with the dog gamboling in expectancy behind his small master. He knew well the cakes were for him.

Out in the grounds they met Graham. He had been to the stables to look at his pony, a new gift from his father. He paused astonished at sight of the children.

"Oh, Graham," Suzanna cried at sight of him, "your mother said we should see the gardener about this dog. She thought he'd like to have him."

Graham, though startled, asked no questions.

"I guess it's David mother means," he said. "Wait here and I'll see if he's in the back garden."

After Graham had gone Peter began to conjecture. "If David won't take Jerry," he said, "what'll we do?"

"You'll have to take him out and lose him then," said Maizie calmly.

Peter turned a considering eye upon her. He couldn't understand her. Quite as a matter of course she suggested his taking the dog out on some prairie and turning it loose, to know hunger, and perhaps abuse. And yet, he had seen this same tender-hearted little Maizie crying because a spider had been swept down from the porch. No, in his boyish soul he decided that should he live a thousand years, he never would understand women with their inconsistencies and their peculiar viewpoints. Their tendernesses in one direction and their complacent cruelties in others.

"Let's go and sit on the steps of that cottage," said Suzanna, pointing to a small house at the foot of the side garden. Maizie consented, but Peter preferred not to move. He wished to stay with his dog as long as possible. In the cottage might be a lady who would look with the same horror-stricken eyes upon his friend as had Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett.

So Suzanna and Maizie left him with his dog. They had just ensconced themselves comfortably on the steps of the cottage when a distressing accent struck upon their ears, and simultaneously they turned in the direction of the sound. There on a tiny verandah, almost hidden behind a large fern growth, a little girl sat on a low chair crying softly and pathetically as though her small heart were broken. The children stood for a moment not knowing just what to do. Then Maizie, the same one, thought Peter satirically (he could see all that went on from his place beyond) who had suggested his losing his dog on a prairie, went to the pathetic figure and sitting beside it said in a tremulous low voice, full of sympathy and pity:

"What's the matter, little girl?"

The one thus addressed took her hands down from her face and looked around at her questioner. Her eyes were dark, with black lashes, and she had wonderful, curly hair. When she had finished looking at Maizie, which was a long moment, she put her hand behind her and produced a doll, sadly deficient as to features. Indeed, noseless, entirely, and with one eye gone. But in a very fever of love, she held it to her.

"Are you crying because your doll is broken?" asked Suzanna, now coming a little closer and standing straight and slim before the child.

"No, she's not broken," said the little girl, "but she's got the whooping cough and she keeps my father awake nights coughing."

Suzanna instantly responded. "Oh, that's too bad," she said. "Can't your mother fix her some flaxseed tea?"

Now down once more went the little girl's head upon her knee, and once more she was shaking with sobs. And at this moment young Graham returned and in his wake, David.

"David says," began Graham cheerfully to Suzanna and Maizie, "that he can find room for an extra dog, so you may leave yours. Where's your brother?"

"He is right over there," pointed Maizie.

Then the gardener's glance fell upon the little girl, with her head bent as she still wept.

"She's crying awfully hard," said Suzanna to the gardener. "Do you know whose little girl she is?"

"She's mine," said the man with a big world of tenderness in his voice. "She's my little Daphne."

"We thought she was crying because her doll was broken," said Suzanna. "Then she said it had the whooping cough and kept you awake all night and I asked her why her mother didn't make some flaxseed tea for it."

A swift shadow darkened David's fine face and he shaded his eyes with his hand. Then he went to the little girl and raised her as though she were one of his carefully cherished flowers. Her sobs ceased as she found herself in her father's arms.

"You see," said her father, "she has no mother!"

Now the children knew by his tone and by the extreme sadness in his eyes that the little Daphne's mother had gone away never to return. And they knew it must be the saddest thing in the world to be without a mother; one who was always ready to understand even if you had to wait till the baby was hushed, or the bread looked at in the oven. The understanding did come, sure and tender; a mother who sometimes smiled at you in that complete, deep way, as Suzanna's mother had smiled at her the day she wore her leghorn hat with the daisies.

"Can Daphne play with us?" asked Suzanna after awhile. "And can we take her home to see our mother?"

The man's face brightened at this. "Why, that will be fine," he said. "Perhaps you'd like to play here in the grounds for awhile. Then Daphne can go home with you. You're the Procter children, aren't you? I've talked often with your father when I've bought things in the hardware shop. I'm coming sometime to see his machine."

"Yes," said Suzanna, "but how did you know we were the Procter children? We didn't tell you our name. Did Graham?"

"No," said the man, "but you're the living image of your father. You look at a person just like he does, out of your big dark eyes."

Suzanna flushed. There was nothing in all the world she so loved to hear as that she looked like her father.

Little Daphne had ceased crying and her father carried her up the narrow winding stairs to their own quarters. Shortly he returned again. The little girl now wore a pretty lace-trimmed bonnet mother-made, one knew at once, and a little white cape. She was a very charming and quaint figure.

"I think, daddy," she said, "I'd like to go home right away and see the little girl's mother."

He turned his head away again for a moment, but he managed at last to meet his little daughter's eyes with a smile.

"Run along, sweet," he said.

"Can she stay to supper with us?" asked Suzanna.

"If your mother would like to have her," said the man. "And I'll come up later for her."

"All right," replied Suzanna.

Now came the hard moment for Peter, in the parting from his dog. He came reluctantly forward.

Graham, seeing Peter's distress when the animal had been delivered into David's care, said: "You can come up here often, Peter, and see the dog. I know it's awful hard giving him up."

Peter's heart was touched. Here at last was one who understood! Here at last was one who would not condemn a dog merely because he had an unnaturally big appetite; because he got around under people's feet and had no manners.

"You're a very nice boy," said Suzanna when they were parting, "and we wish you would come to see us."

Graham's face lit. "Oh, I will come. Do you live in that little cottage with the crooked chimney?"

"Yes," said Suzanna. "Come soon, won't you?"

Graham promised he would do so.

As the Procter children went down the road, Graham watched them, but his gaze presently concentrated itself on Suzanna, who was leading the small Daphne.

"I like Suzanna," thought Graham. "I like to see her flush up like a rose when she speaks." Which was a poetical observation for a boy of twelve.



CHAPTER XV

A LENT MOTHER

Mrs. Procter was in the dining-room arranging the shelves of her small sideboard when she heard sounds betokening the children's return.

They entered the dining-room, Suzanna leading a small stranger by the hand, Maizie and Peter behind.

"Mother," began Suzanna at once, "David, the gardener, took the dog and we brought this little girl home to see you."

Mrs. Procter looked questioningly at Daphne, who stood close to Suzanna's protecting arm.

"Stay with Maizie a moment, Daphne," said Suzanna, "while I tell my mother something." Daphne smiled and did as she was told, and Suzanna went close to Mrs. Procter. In a low tone she said: "Daphne's mother went far away awhile ago, and I'm telling this to you in a low voice because Daphne cried when we asked her where her mother was. I brought her home so she could remember how beautiful a mother is."

In an instant the tears sprang to Mrs. Procter's eyes. She went quickly to Daphne, and lifted the little girl.

"Sit down in a rocking chair with her," said Suzanna, "and hold her close up to you. And then when she's cuddled down, look at her like you do at our babies."

Mrs. Procter obeyed. Daphne nestled close. "Her father knows my father, Mrs. Procter," said Suzanna.

Mrs. Procter looked up quickly at this new mode of address. Suzanna explained.

"Daphne," she said, going close and looking down at the contented little face, "I'm giving you a share in my mother while you're here today. I give over the part I own in her to you, and I shall call her Mrs. Procter whenever you visit us."

"But you can't give away even your part in your very own mother," protested Maizie.

"But I have done so, haven't I?"

"Does just saying so make a thing true?" Maizie asked.

"If you say so and live up to it," Suzanna returned.

"Well, anyway," said Maizie, "mother's not cuddling Daphne because she wants to; only because she's sorry for her."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Procter. "I like little Daphne, too, and I'm glad she's come to visit us."

"But you know, mother," said Maizie, "you only find time to cuddle your own babies. And you stop just as soon as they can walk around."

"Mrs. Procter cuddles all children in her heart," said Suzanna loyally. "She'd wear her arms out if she cuddled all of us all the time."

Maizie didn't answer that. But when little Daphne finally left Mrs. Procter's sheltering clasp and went away to play with the children, Maizie still hovered about her mother.

"Mother," she said at last, "did you like to hold Daphne close up to you?"

Now mothers are very wonderful beings, and with no further word from Maizie, Mrs. Procter understood the child's unspoken wish. In a moment Maizie was held close to her mother's breast, and was looking up into her mother's tender eyes. And the mother was thinking. Was mother love selfish then in its inclusion? Weren't there little ones outside hungering for cuddling? How children went to the heart of things! She thought suddenly and perhaps irrelevantly of her husband's invention upon which he poured his heart's best treasures. And yet not once had he ever mentioned the money which might be his did success attend it. Only the good to others. His seemed a wide vision. She sighed. It was hard to find strength enough, time enough to go outside one's home doing good. "Well, at least," she thought with a sudden uplift, "I'll adopt little Daphne into our home circle."

When Mr. Procter arrived home for supper he found, playing happily about, the little addition to his family. Suzanna took her father off to one corner to explain all about Daphne.

"And so I've given my share in mother to Daphne whenever she visits us," concluded Suzanna.

Mr. Procter smiled and touched Suzanna's dark hair. Later he arranged a chair so Daphne might be comfortable at the supper table. A book and a cushion brought that state of comfort about, and the child was very happy. She was, for the time being, a member of an interesting family, everyone trying his best to entertain her. Even Peter forgot the loss of his dog and said some funny things which made Daphne laugh.

After supper David called for his little daughter. Daphne cried out joyfully as he entered.

"Oh, I've had such a good time, Daddy David," she exclaimed.

He lifted her to his shoulder, then gazed about the little family circle. His eyes lingered on Mrs. Procter.

"You've been good to Daphne, I know," he said simply. "And so good night."

"While you're here, David," said Mr. Procter, "I'll show you my invention."

"Fine!" David said; he swung the little girl from his shoulder. "I'd like to see that machine."

So they all went upstairs to the attic. The machine stood brooding in its peace.

Mr. Procter lit a lamp. Its glow fell softly upon the little group.

"Old John Massey came into the shop today," said Mr. Procter. "He promised to come in and see the machine tomorrow."

"Does he know its object?" asked David.

"No, there's been no chance to tell him."

"Why is he interested, then?" asked David. "Has his commercial instinct been aroused?"

"Oh, I think not," said the inventor, "I've not spoken to him about that part of it, only told him a great chance was his if he became interested in the machine."

"Someone's ringing the bell. Run down, Peter," said Mrs. Procter.

Peter went down and returned at once with a note.

"A man with brass buttons brought it," he said. "It's for father."

Mr. Procter tore open the letter.

"Well, that's decent of John Massey to let me know," he said. "He's ill and will be unable to come here tomorrow."

"Yes, very decent for old John Massey," said David. "Well, I must be off. And we'll come again soon, if we may."



CHAPTER XVI

SUZANNA AIDS CUPID

"Mother dear," asked Suzanna one day, "if the Eagle Man's sick, don't you think I ought to go and see him?"

Mrs. Procter hesitated. She looked into the earnest dark eyes raised to hers. "Well, dear, perhaps it would be kind," she said.

"I ought to take him some flowers," Suzanna pursued.

The time was early morning, and Mr. Procter had not yet departed for the hardware store.

"I can't think where you'll get flowers, Suzanna," he said.

"Oh, there's a little shaded spot in a field I know and there's some daisies there. I'll gather them on the way to the Eagle Man."

So that afternoon after school Suzanna admonished Maizie to be quick with her buttons because she and the baby were to pay a call on the Eagle Man.

"I have to gather the daisies for him, too," said Suzanna.

"I don't like the Eagle Man very well," said Maizie; "I'm afraid of him; and I don't see why you should take flowers to him. He has plenty in the big glass house in his yard."

Suzanna stopped short. "You don't like him after he gave you that lovely ride in the summer, Maizie Procter, and after he's interested in our father's Machine? I'm 'shamed of you. You ought to like everybody Miss Massey says, and flowers in his glass house aren't like flowers that are a present from somebody else."

Maizie did not answer this, but the look on her face indicated some defiance of Suzanna's attempted direction of her thoughts. When they were ready, they called good-bye to their mother and started away. Suzanna pushed the cart containing the baby, while Maizie walked sedately beside her.

From the field Suzanna knew, she secured a small bunch of late daisies and then the journey was continued. At length the children reached the Massey grounds. Suzanna pushed open the big iron gate and trundled the cart into the gravel path. The ground immediately began to be slightly hilly.

"You'd better help me, Maizie," said Suzanna.

"How?" asked Maizie helplessly.

"Put your hands on my back and push," said Suzanna.

So the little procession formed itself. And in this wise it reached the top of the hill. The house itself lay a few yards in front of them. The children paused to rest, and then Suzanna, looking around, beheld a small vine-covered arbor, and within, just visible through the enshrouding ivy, a man and a woman, Miss Massey and a stranger.

"How do you do, Suzanna?" Miss Massey said when she found herself discovered. "Did you want to see me?"

"I'm very glad to see you," responded Suzanna politely, "but I didn't come expressly on purpose to look at you. I came to see the Eagle Man."

"The Eagle Man?" asked Miss Massey, puzzled.

"He walks with a cane," put in Maizie, "and he coughs kind of hoarse each time he speaks."

"He's your father," said Suzanna. "He sits down on a velvet chair, and he shouts, and he gets red in the face, and he bangs his fist on the chair when a little man doesn't hurry up, though I thought he went very fast. He did all that the day the Sunday School pupils came to your party."

"Oh, yes," said Miss Massey, a smile lighting her face at the vivid description, "I did not know that you had met my father, but I'm afraid you can't see him today, dear. He's not well."

"Yes, I know; that's why I came to see him and to bring him these flowers."

Miss Massey was a little puzzled. How did Suzanna know John Massey was ill?

"Suppose you bring the baby in here," suggested the man who was sitting next to Miss Massey, and who up to this time had been silent. "And after awhile Miss Massey can find out if her father is able to see you."

"All right," said Suzanna with alacrity. She started to lift the baby from his carriage when the man sprang up and took the child from her. The baby smiled and won his way at once to the stranger's heart.

"He's sweet, isn't he?" began Suzanna, as she entered the arbor, Maizie with her. Miss Massey drew Maizie within the circle of her own arm.

"He is that," said the man earnestly, "although I don't know very much about babies. Does he cry much?"

"Well, he's very sinful when he's hungry. He's getting better now because he's growing older, but he used to shriek till his face got red. Once in awhile now he wants what he wants right away. I was trying once to learn a piece of poetry, and he suddenly shrieked and I had to stop everything and warm his milk. I'm only hoping he'll live to grow up, because if he should die now I'm afraid God wouldn't want him in Heaven."

"Are there ladies in Heaven that take care of babies?" asked Maizie interestedly, a new train of thoughts started.

"You know there are, Maizie," said Suzanna, allowing no one else a chance to answer. "There are lots of little babies that go away, and do you s'pose they'd be called if they were going to be left hungry and cold? God has it all arranged. First, he calls a baby and then pretty soon he calls a mother and she takes care of the baby."

"Any mother?" Maizie asked.

"Yes, any mother; they're all good."

"But why doesn't he leave them on earth with their own mothers?"

"Because sometimes he takes a liking to somebody down here," Suzanna said gravely. "But anyway, you needn't ask me such questions, because here's Miss Massey who knows everything," Suzanna finished magnanimously.

"She does that," said the man gravely who was holding the baby.

"Are you related to Miss Massey?" asked Suzanna. Now Miss Massey's rather faded cheeks grew pink.

"Is it a long time before the baby needs his bottle again, Suzanna?" she asked.

"Oh, not for hours," said Suzanna. "You see, now he eats crackers and bread and butter and an egg sometimes, and we gave him some before we started." She returned relentlessly to the question again, appealing to the man. "Are you related to Miss Massey?"

"No," the stranger said after a time, "we're just friends."

Miss Massey put in hastily: "Shall we go into the house, children, and I'll show you some interesting things?"

The man rose quickly, the baby still in his arms. In this manner they all entered the big house and went into the beautiful room that Suzanna remembered so well.

"Do you live here?" asked Suzanna of the man. He shook his head.

"You mean in this little town?" he asked. "I once did years ago, but I moved away to the city. I'm paying a short visit to my sister now."

"Oh," said Suzanna. "My father has a sister called Aunt Martha. She comes sometimes when we have a new baby."

"Why," said Maizie suddenly, as they were all seated, the baby contentedly sitting on the man's knee, her voice shrill with new discovery. "He is related to Miss Massey; he looks at her that way."

The man, after a long pause in which he gathered understanding, answered very solemnly. "Well," he said, "if loving a person makes you a relative, then I am very closely related to Miss Massey. But if lack of money keeps one from being related, then I'm only a stranger to her."

Neither Suzanna nor Maizie could understand that statement. But Miss Massey blushed till her face was like a lovely flower.

Yet when Suzanna appeared to be about to take up a new line of questioning, Miss Massey spoke quickly:

"I think you'd like some lemonade, wouldn't you, Suzanna, you and your sister? I'll go and order some for you."

She went out of the room. The man waited for a moment, then handing the baby to Suzanna, followed Miss Massey.

"Would you like to live here, Suzanna?" asked Maizie.

"No, I don't like people around with brass buttons on their coats," said Suzanna. "And then there'd be so much cleaning we'd never get through."

At the moment came an unmistakable sound.

"The Eagle Man!" cried Suzanna with absolute conviction. "I thought he was sick."

And indeed it was just exactly the Eagle Man. Straight he came to the library. He paused in the doorway at sight of the children. All the high color had faded from his face; he looked alarmingly ill.

"Oh," cried Suzanna, immediately upon sight of him. "We came to see you and to bring you these daisies."

He accepted them with a little grimace. "Thank you, little girl," he said. "Put that heavy baby down. He can crawl around."

Suzanna carefully lowered the baby to the floor. He sat with blinking eyes, so many treasures for his small hands lay within touch.

The Eagle Man spoke. "Who have you been talking with?" he asked as he looked about suspiciously.

"Oh," cried Suzanna, "there's nobody hidden away. Miss Massey and her relation went out to see about some lemonade."

"Her relation!" stormed the Eagle Man.

"Yes, the one who loves Miss Massey."

The Eagle Man recovered all his lost color. Watching his terrible expression, both children thought it a blessing that at this critical moment Miss Massey and her relation returned. But, oh, it was not the same Miss Massey, but one who had found the world. Her face was glowing like a girl's and her eyes sparkled and shone; and when she faced her father there was manifest in her aspect a certain courage that in his eyes at least sat strangely upon her.

"Father," she cried, "you should be in bed."

"What's the meaning of all this?" he shouted, ignoring her soft concern.

The new relation came forward. "My dear sir," he began, "I shall have to ask you to refrain from attempting to intimidate the lady who is to be my wife."

"Your wife?" exclaimed the Eagle Man turning upon the speaker. "She's my daughter."

"Granted," said the man calmly, "and she's also my promised wife."

"I shall never give my consent," said the Eagle Man, but his voice had fallen.

"Then, father," said delicate, timid little Miss Massey, "I shall marry Robert without your consent."

There was a long heavy silence. The baby having found a gold-plated lizard on the hearth was contemplating it with wondering eyes.

"Very well," said the Eagle Man at last, trying to speak calmly. "You'll go your own way. Not a cent of mine do you ever get."

"I'm glad to hear that," said the man, "for not a cent of yours shall my wife need."

Into the breach Suzanna strode.

"Oh, but you will need money," she cried as she stood anchoring the baby by means of an extended arm. "When you're married and you have a big family you'll have to pay the rent, and you'll have to dress all the little children, and there'll be insurance week, and something you haven't thought of all the time, and just when you get on your feet, there'll be the doctor at your door and his bill pretty soon."

"Exactly," said the Eagle Man, as though by Suzanna's words many of his contentions had been proved.

"But we shall be together," said little Miss Massey, as though that beloved truth answered everything. The man had thrown his arms about her and had drawn her quite close, and she looked up into his face with eyes that still shone. Oh, how long she had loved him! And how long had it been since she settled to the realization that though he loved her, he was proud and would not speak. This spoken love she had craved with all her heart; and it had been withheld because he had no money and her father had too much.

"Will you tell me your real objection to me?" asked the man with frank directness appealing to the Eagle Man. "For that you have had objections to me I've sensed always."

The Eagle Man turned and looked the younger man over, carefully, critically, before answering. Indeed, he was so long about speaking that the children, at least, thought he never meant to speak again.

But at last: "My daughter," he began, "is now thirty-six. She has had thirty-six years of luxury, of merely raising her finger and receiving highly trained service. She is not a young girl who might, being more adaptable and buoyed up by romance, settle down to a new order of life; she is too used to the luxuries I have been able to give her, servants, carriages, horses, travel, fine clothes—" he enumerated them all with distinctness, giving each item a lengthy second before going on to his conclusion. "It will work real hardship on her to be compelled to give up all these things to do her own work and to make over her own dresses."

"You're mistaken, father," Miss Massey denied, "all that giving up, if giving up you can call it, will be my joy if I can be with Robert." Her voice, deep with emotion, died into a silence which reigned for moments. No one seemed to wish to break it, not even the baby. And yet, though the meaning of all the spoken words had not been clear to Suzanna, her eager, sensitive little mind seized on pictures which seemed somehow to fit in; yet pictures in their simplicity so far removed from her surroundings of luxury that they would seem but vagrant fancies.

Had she attempted to translate them, she would have failed, yet as they grew momentarily more vivid and meaningful, interpretive words, as vivid as the pictures themselves, rushed to her lips. She turned to the Eagle Man.

"Oh, on Saturday night when supper is over and the shades are pulled down and the lamp is lit in the parlor, and Robert is reading a big book with pictures in it, and the children, except the two eldest, are all asleep upstairs and it's raining outside, and you can hear the pitapat, pitapat of the drops on the window pane, then Miss Massey will be happy. Before supper Miss Massey'll have felt awful tired and she'll hurry up things and she'll make her eldest little girl hurry too, but after the dishes are cleared away, and she's sitting close to Robert, she'll be so glad she's in out of the rain with her children all in safe too, that she'll not care a bit about raising her finger for a little man to come and ask her what she wants. She'll not want to go about in a carriage, or travel in a big train!"

No one spoke. Only the scene painted so simply grew in the hearts of at least two there, so that Robert drew his promised wife a little closer to him and she glanced up in his face with eyes full of color.

Suzanna went on. She had forgotten her audience. She was just telling out the pictures that had been built into her life; supper tables with many young faces about; little babies who had stayed just awhile; hasty words and loving making up; the star-dust of the real every-day life.

"You know," she continued, "that Maizie and I crept downstairs one Saturday night because I wanted to tell daddy something, and mother was sitting right close to him, and we heard her say: 'When the children are safe in bed, and just you and I are here—then I see things clearer—' And he just looked at her and said, 'Sweetheart!' and his voice was nicer than even when he says good-night to Maizie and me."

Miss Massey turned her gaze upon Suzanna. "Little girl, little girl," she said, "come here—"

So Suzanna went and stood close to Miss Massey, whilst Maizie went after the marauding baby.

The Eagle Man cleared his throat. "That child of yours is going to sleep," he said speaking to Suzanna.

"Oh, no," said Suzanna, not meaning to contradict, but just to set him straight, "he's wide-awake. But I guess it must be time for us to go. I know you think so too, Mr. Eagle Man."

She left Miss Massey's tender clasp, went to the baby, raised him, held him under her arm skilfully, the while his legs stuck out straight behind her. She spoke to Miss Massey:

"If the Eagle Man's mad at you and he stays mad all night," she said, "you can come to our house and sleep in my bed with Maizie. Mother can fix the dining-room table for me."

Miss Massey released herself from Robert's clasp and went to Suzanna. She stooped and kissed her tenderly. "Thank you, dear little girl," she said. "I'll remember that invitation."

The Eagle Man pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. Immediately it seemed, one of the men with brass buttons appeared.

"Carry that child to its perambulator," shouted the Eagle Man. Not a flicker disturbed the serenity of the man addressed, no matter what were his inner feelings. He put out two arms straight and stiff like rods, and Suzanna placed the baby upon them. Saying quickly their adieus, Suzanna and Maizie walked behind the uniformed man, for whom Suzanna at least felt a stirring of pity.



CHAPTER XVII

A SIMPLE WEDDING

"And so," concluded Suzanna early one afternoon as she stood on a soap box in her own yard, "the noble knight set forth on his prancing steed, having finished his deeds of blood. And all about him lay those he had slain."

The children having listened entranced to the story, now stirred; Maizie was the first to speak. "I think the knight was horrid," she said.

"I like him," said soft little Daphne who was now a constant, happy visitor at the Procter home.

"I think a brave knight is bully," said Graham Bartlett, as constant a visitor as Daphne.

"I would slay mine by the hundred," cried Peter boastfully.

Graham looked off into the distance. "I shall fare forth some day," he said, "and lead my armies to victory proudly, yet disdainfully. I shall have no love in my heart, only sternness."

"Drusilla can tell some wonderful tales of knights," said Suzanna. "Does she tell you stories when you go to visit her, Graham?"

Graham colored hotly. "I haven't been to see her lately," he answered; then, "I'll tell you, let's go today."

Suzanna bounded away to ask permission of her mother. She returned in a moment. "Mother says we may go after Peter changes his blouse. Hurry up, Peter. Don't keep us waiting."

Peter moved reluctantly houseward, and Suzanna ended: "Isn't it fine that today was teachers' meeting so we could have a holiday?"

Graham looked wistfully at her. He had a tutor, and lessons alone he felt could not be so interesting as when learned with a number of other boys and girls.

"Let's go," said Suzanna, "we can walk slowly so Peter can catch up with us. You mustn't get tired, will you, Daphne?" Daphne was very sure she would not, and Peter reappearing at the moment, they all started away. They went out into a sunny day left over from the Indian summer. Still there was crispness in the air which exhilarated them, moving Peter to sundry manifestations which Maizie coldly designated as "showing off." He stood on his head, turned somersaults, cast his voice up to the heavens, immediately spoiled the crispness of his clean blouse. He was the fine, free savage, and his sisters finally gave up trying to tame him.

"It's Thanksgiving weather, isn't it?" said Suzanna. "Come on, let's all skip."

So they all fell into Peter's spirit, and thus it was that skipping and singing they reached Drusilla's little home. It was very quiet in that spot, the garden desolate, the flowers gone. The children instinctively hushed their songs and went slowly up the front steps.

Graham rang the bell.

The kindly-faced maid answered the ring. "Oh, come in, children," she cried. "Mrs. Bartlett certainly needs cheering today."

The children, thus cordially invited, trooped in. "Is Drusilla sad today?" asked Suzanna.

"Well, she's thinking of the past," said the maid. "All day she's been talking of her early home across the ocean, talking of the familiar places of her childhood. She insisted even upon my preparing brouse for her luncheon."

"Brouse?" The children were interested. They wanted to know what brouse was. The maid smiled.

"Why brouse is just bread broken up into a bowl with hot water poured over it and lots of butter and salt and pepper added. One day when Mrs. Bartlett was a little girl, her mother took her to the home of an old nurse, and there she had brouse to eat, and afterwards for one joyful hour she was allowed to wear the clogs belonging to the nurse's little granddaughter."

"I know what clogs are," said Graham. "They're wooden shoes that make a lot of noise and have brass nails in them." He had looked into the sitting room and was interested in an object there. "What's that?" he asked. "Can't my grandmother walk?"

The maid's eyes followed his finger. "That's a wheel chair," she said. "Your grandmother is not so strong as she was in the summer, so I take her out in the chair when the day is bright. Well, children, go upstairs quietly. Suzanna knows the way to Mrs. Bartlett's room."

So the children on tiptoes mounted the thickly carpeted stairs. At the top Suzanna waited for the others, then went down the hall, paused and knocked softly on the panel to the right, and at the soft invitation to enter, pushed open wide the door.

Drusilla sat within, her chair drawn close to the window. Her hands were lying listlessly in her lap. She looked wilted, a flower fading to its end. She turned to the children and smiled, a very small wistful smile, but it lit her pale delicate face and made Daphne advance confidentially to the middle of the room.

"We came to see you," she said in her winsome way.

"I'm very glad," said Drusilla. "Won't you all come close to me?"

The children obeyed. Drusilla looked inquiringly at Graham, and then said, "Well, my boy, you've grown somewhat."

"Yes, two inches in six months." He wanted to say something to lift the sadness from her face, and at last he blurted out: "I think you're a bully grandmother, and I'm coming often to see you."

"Ah, then I'll tell you fine tales of your father when he was a lad of your age," she answered, well pleased. She put out her white hand and laid it on his head.

And at the touch there grew in Graham's young soul a wish to defend this dear old lady, this grandmother. He wanted to fight for her, to do something great for her. He had visions of himself, a man, wearing her colors. All his deepest chivalry was aroused. He looked longingly into her face, and with loving sagacity she read his desire.

"My dear," she said, "I wish you would do something for me."

"Oh, grandmother, what would you like me to do?" he cried.

"The day is so beautiful," she answered. "I've had my windows open and I know. Would you be my knight and wheel me out?"

"Grandmother, will you let me do that?" His voice rose. "I'll wheel you down the wide road out into the country." He straightened his shoulders, pride filled his heart. His grandmother trusted her frail body to his care!

"Well and good, my boy," she answered. And then to Suzanna: "Will you tell Letty to get my cape and bonnet. My grandson would take me riding."

Letty, answering Suzanna's call, came at once. She found a very cheerful mistress and an excited little group of children. She hesitated a moment when Graham told her he meant to take his grandmother out for a ride. But noting the earnestness of the boy's manner she made no spoken objections, but she went to the clothes press and took down Drusilla's "dolman" and small close fitting bonnet.

"Be very careful of your grandmother," said the maid, as she dressed Mrs. Bartlett and then offered her arm to steady the slight figure down the stairs.

"I shall be very careful," promised Graham. Never once in his young life had any real service been asked of him. He was experiencing for the first time a sense of responsibility and he grew beneath it.

Downstairs Letty guided the rubber-tired wheel chair out into the hall, down the front steps. She returned for Drusilla and seating her in the chair, tucked a soft velvet rug about her.

Graham took his place at the long handled bar. Gently he pushed the chair and the small cavalcade was on its way.

At first each child was quiet. Graham, ever mindful of the charge which was his, was very serious and his thoughts turned to his mother.

He wished she had taken this grandmother right into her own home to be watched over, loved and cared for tenderly. He wondered if his father, his ever busy father, would have liked that. Oh, why was it considered better for a grandmother, one who had fancies, to live alone in a small house, with every comfort it is true, but with no one of her very own close beside her!

He looked over at Suzanna. She was walking close to Drusilla, and talking earnestly as was her way. Suzanna never went out into the world but some object started a train of thought of keen interest. He could hear snatches of her talk. It was about the trees, stripped bare now, and their mood sad probably because of their denudement. Suzanna gazed with concern at their stark limbs stretching out, no longer able to shelter people or to sing softly when the wind blew through their leaves.

Drusilla contributed her share, too. She thought the trees knew that people did not need shelter from the hot sun when the snow was about to fly. And the snow could lie in such beautiful, straight lines on long, unleaved limbs.

And so they passed on from subject to subject, while Graham listened. And then little Daphne grew tired and began to lag. Graham seeing the child and about to make some suggestion for her comfort, was distracted by Peter's call. The boy had found a rabbit hole and wished he had Jerry with him to reach the rabbit, for which cruel wish both Suzanna and Maizie scolded him roundly. And he gazed at them with the same old perplexed gaze. Were these not the same sisters who looked complacently on while a homeless, helpless dog was turned out casually into an inhuman world?

Well, again he gave up the puzzle of their contrary attitudes. Perhaps understanding would come in the big-grown-up years.

But when they returned from examining the rabbit hole, they found little Daphne had curled herself up at Drusilla's feet. Drusilla had moved a little and the child hopping up on the foot-rest had put her small arms on Drusilla's knee, dropped her head and gone to sleep. Suzanna carefully covered her with part of the velvet rug.

So they started away again and came at last to a little lonely church set back from the road. It was a quaint little edifice, made of irregular purplish stone. The moss had crept up on one side softly, protectingly. You thought at once it had been built by loving hands and that loving souls had worshiped in it. And you knew that under its assumed and momentary air of expectancy it was sad in having outlived its usefulness. Its door was swung open hospitably and the children stopped to look in. Graham wheeled his grandmother close to the door so she too could gaze within.

There were pews, empty, with worn cushions. A large stained glass window with one Figure, noble despite the artist's limitations, had caught lights and sent them down in long sapphire and amethyst fingers. A man moved about the altar, changing from place to place a vase of white roses.

"Is that the minister?" whispered Maizie.

Suzanna nodded. "Yes. He's going to offer up prayer, I think."

The minister turned and smiled at the children. He seemed some way to fit into the soft atmosphere of the place, seeming to belong there. Suzanna could not fancy him moving in any merely practical environment.

And while the children lingered, and Drusilla looked in through the open church door, a man and a woman came down the road. The woman walked slowly and the man had his arm about her in a guarding kind of way.

When they neared the church they stopped. Suzanna, turning, recognized them and with a joyful cry she ran to meet them.

"Oh, Miss Massey," she cried, "and Robert. Are you out for a walk, too?"

The man looked down at her. "Yes, little girl. We are going into that old church. Did you see the minister?"

"Yes, he's inside," said Suzanna. She looked at Miss Massey. "You've been crying," she said.

Miss Massey tried to speak calmly, but there was a little quiver in her voice. "Because it's all so different from what I dreamed."

"Come, dear," said Robert then, "come with me."

She seemed to take courage from his manliness and the truth of his love shining forth from his eyes, and so she put her hand into his and walked up the path with him.

At the door of the church they paused again. Suzanna who had followed quickly, said, "This is Drusilla, my very best friend."

Miss Massey looked into the sweet old face. Perhaps she thought of her own mother, for the tears came quickly again. "I'm glad to know you," she said simply. And then asked, "Won't you come in and see me married?"

And Drusilla answered: "Indeed, I should like to very much, my dear."

So Robert helped her gently from the wheel chair. He lifted small Daphne upon the vacated seat and tucked her in carefully. And then they all entered the church.

The minister came down from the altar. He had lit two candles and they sent their wavering light out upon the small audience. The Man above the altar looked down with infinite tenderness upon the pale little bride.

The minister spoke: "Robert, take your bride upon your arm!"

Thus adjured, Robert proffered his arm and Miss Massey put her small hand upon it. Then slowly they walked behind the minister to the altar. Suzanna, Maizie, and Peter followed.

Graham offered his support to his grandmother. He had pledged his fealty to her and he felt grateful that she leaned upon him as slowly she mounted the four steps which led to the altar.

There they grouped themselves about the bridal pair. Graham stood close to his grandmother, Suzanna near to Miss Massey, Peter and Maizie at Robert's right hand.

The minister began: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together—" and on through the beautiful old ceremony.

He came at length to this question: "Who giveth this woman to this man?" and paused simply in custom. And old John Massey was far distant, nursing his anger and yet sad, too, because he would not in his temper attend the marriage of his daughter, though most lovingly and pleadingly had that daughter begged his presence. And the girl's mother was lying out on a hillside—where she had lain for many a long year.

And the waiting bride had tears in her heart, till, suddenly, Drusilla, with a beautiful light in her eyes, stepped forward. She put her white-veined old hand softly on the bride's arm, and she said in a low clear voice:

"I do—I give this woman to this man."

And the mother spirit in her spoke so richly that the bride all at once felt happy and a little awed, too, as though her own mother had for the moment raised herself and spoken.

And the minister went on with the ceremony till came the end: "And I pronounce that they are Man and Wife."

And Robert folded his wife in his arms and kissed her while each face, young and old, pictured the deep solemnity of the moment.

Robert's wife at last turned to Drusilla. She put her arms about the bravely upstanding figure in its old-fashioned dolman. "Oh, thank you, thank you," she murmured. "I shall never forget what you've done for me today."

The color flowed like a wave up over Drusilla's face. With a quick little breath, she leaned forward and kissed the new wife. She experienced a sudden glow. It was as though Life for the moment, forgetful that she was old and laid aside, had called her forward to fill a need no other was near to fill.

They all left the church after Robert had signed his name in a big book, and his wife had written hers with a proud little flourish. Robert helped Drusilla into the wheel chair, after lifting Daphne from her place on the upholstered cushion. This time the little girl awoke. She was about to cry when Robert raised her in his arms and carried her down the road, hushing her against him, while Graham again ordered himself his grandmother's squire.

And so they went down the road together, all somewhat quiet, even Peter's exuberant spirits moderated, till they reached Drusilla's home. The maid, Letty, awaiting her mistress' return, ran down the steps, an anxious frown between her eyes.

"Come," said Drusilla. "You must all be my guests." She whispered some words in Letty's ear. The girl smiled and half shyly glanced at Robert and his bride.

Robert still carrying little Daphne, who had refused to be put down, said at once: "We should like that very much. I was so hoping you would ask us."

So they entered the little house. They went into the parlor with its portrait above the mantel and the lilies of the valley beneath it. Graham remembered with a little warm feeling that his father had once left the order at a city florist's for a daily spray of those lovely bells.

Letty, carrying the dolman and small bonnet, disappeared but in a miraculously short time returned to announce that tea was ready in the dining-room.

Drusilla flushed and happy led the way. Robert and his wife followed, and the children came last. The hostess, from her place at the head of the table, designated each one's chair, and when all were seated she bowed her head and offered up a little prayer.

And then Letty brought in hot muffins and marmalade, sweet butter and fragrant tea. And amidst much laughter and merry words the feast began:

And at the end Drusilla rose, and asking silence, said:

"Robert, today in the name of the bride's mother, I gave her into your keeping. I can see a promise in your eyes that she will never, never regret going to you. Love her always."

And Robert, standing, in a deep voice answered: "Drusilla," borrowing quite unconsciously Suzanna's way of name, "Drusilla, I have taken upon myself this day the great responsibility of a woman's happiness—" he paused and bent a look of ineffable tenderness upon his wife—"and please God I shall keep that responsibility while life lasts."

And they all pushed back their chairs, the children with a little scraping noise. And Robert looking at his watch thought it was time to leave, since the train would not wait for laggards.

Then all in a moment it seemed he was going down the path again, his wife upon his arm. And Graham, who had disappeared kitchenward, returned and flung a handful of rice after them. At which the bride turned and laughed and waved her hand.

"It was a real wedding, wasn't it, Drusilla?" said Suzanna, "even to the rice."

"A real wedding, my little girl," said Drusilla.

Graham spoke: "Grandmother, aren't you glad I wheeled you out today?"

She answered at once. "So very glad, Graham. And I feel happier tonight than for many a long day."

"And may I do so again soon?" he asked. "And next summer I'll take you out every day."

A little smile touched her lips. "Next summer—next summer—? Ah, laddie, come often this winter, if you can."

And then the children started away. And at the last moment Drusilla drew Suzanna to her. "Little girl," she said lovingly, "I'm so glad you came once to visit me—that summer day."

"Oh, so am I, Drusilla," Suzanna cried. She looked wistfully into her friend's face. "Some day I want to do something wonderful for you."

Drusilla, bending low, kissed the upturned face with its big seeking eyes. But she did not speak. For why make definite by clumsy words the miracles a little child brings to pass. No, thought Drusilla in her wisdom, Suzanna should go her way beautifully unconscious of her good works.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE EAGLE MAN VISITS THE ATTIC

A few Saturdays after the marriage in the little wayside church, Richard Procter reached home in a state of great excitement.

The family was in the dining-room. Mrs. Procter was polishing the drinking glasses. Though it was long past noon, Suzanna had just commenced to clear away the luncheon dishes. Maizie was shaking napkins, while Peter was in a corner pretending to play ball with the baby, very much to the baby's amusement.

Mr. Procter told his news triumphantly.

"At last," he cried. "Jane, John Massey is absolutely coming to see the machine this afternoon."

The color flashed up into Mrs. Procter's face.

"Oh, Richard," she cried; "perhaps—" but she did not finish her conjecture.

"He won't take The Machine away, will he, father?" Suzanna asked anxiously.

"No, not that particular one, little girl. There'll have to be others built. That is just the model."

At two o'clock Mr. Procter was in the attic working at the machine. At three, so interested had he grown, that he had really forgotten the expected visit of old John Massey. So it was a real surprise when Mrs. Procter ushered him in.

"Well, I'm here at last," said Mr. Massey. He looked over to where the cabinet stood. "Your machine is rather mysterious looking."

"Does it seem so? Here, lay your hat and coat on this table, Mr. Massey. Now I'll explain the purpose of the machine."

"Yes, that's what I'm most interested in, what it's for; what you expect to do with it."

Richard Procter turned an eager face to the capitalist.

"I'll start at the beginning," he said. "Have you ever stopped to think what would mean the greatest happiness to humanity?"

Mr. Massey coughed and moved uneasily. "Can't say I have. Food and drink sufficient for all, so I've heard your orator across the street announce."

Mr. Procter smiled. "That, yes, might bring content, but I'm speaking of spiritual happiness. Well, this is my idea of what would bring about a revolution in the sum total of world content. Each man at the work he was born to do.

"And having once reached that conclusion, I set about formulating plans for the building of my machine. An instrument so delicate that it could register a man's leading talent."

Mr. Massey moved away a little. He stared doubtfully at the inventor before the clearing thought came. Before him stood a madman, a wild visionary.

He looked over at his hat and coat. To stay was a mere waste of time, he realized that now. Still, there was Suzanna who had made a place for herself in his gruff old heart. The machine, he knew, could have no commercial value. Yet he remembered a few of Suzanna's values which were not based on the possession of money.

Well, for Suzanna's sake he would listen, go away and forget. So he seated himself, and waited condescendingly for the inventor to continue. He himself said nothing, for silence, he had learned, was golden.

Mr. Procter went on. "My first step in the work was to evolve what might be termed a system of color interpretation."

"I don't understand at all," said old John Massey sharply.

The inventor hesitated. Visionary, he might truly be called, but, too, he was sensitive and he had felt the capitalist's withdrawal as soon as the purpose of the machine was explained to him. But the end was a big one. He must not hesitate, so he went on.

"May I put it broadly without arousing your derision, that color sight was bestowed upon me. Just as my little girl Suzanna visualizes each day as a shape, so I've always seen people in color; that out of that sight I built my own science of color."

"Romance of color, you mean," returned John Massey harshly, "for so far as I can gain, there is no science about it. I deal in facts, Mr. Procter, not in air castles. Does the machine do anything, but stand there a silent monument to your dreams?"

Mr. Procter hesitated but a moment, then, "Come, Mr. Massey," he said, "take your place. Let us see what the machine says of you. Remember, please, it will register only your truest meaning, the purpose for which you were born; the part of you which never dies, which is never really submerged, regardless of a turning to false gods."