the sweet summer air. She crawled into bed and shut her eyes. She
remembered stealing out at last, after many days, to the grocery round
the corner for a pound of coffee. "Humpback! humpback!" cried the
children,--the very children who could leap and laugh.

One day she and little Del Ivory made mud-houses after school.

"I'm going to have a house of my own, when I'm grown up," said pretty
Del; "I shall have a red carpet and some curtains; my husband will buy
me a piano."

"So will mine, I guess," said Sene, simply.

"_Yours!"_ Del shook back her curls; "who do you suppose would ever
marry _you_?"

One night there was a knocking at the door, and a hideous, sodden thing
borne in upon a plank. The crowded street, tired of tipping out little
children, had tipped her mother staggering through the broken fence. At
the funeral she heard some one say, "How glad Sene must be!"

Since that, life had meant three things,--her father, the mills, and
Richard Cross.

"You're a bit put out that the young fellow didn't stay to supper,--eh,
Senath?" the old man said, laying down his boot.

"Put out! Why should I be? His time is his own. It's likely to be the
Union that took him out,--such a fine day for the Union! I'm sure I
never expected him to go to walk with me _every_ Saturday afternoon. I'm