of strength, the face was not hard--no, nor sad; and there was a certain
latent poetry, too, about the gesture and look with which she gave food
to the little ones, as if the giving and receiving were a free thing,
and not the mere necessity of life. Her manner of giving them supper was
to push the large pan of curded milk close to the edge of the table,
where the little ones were clustered, and let them, four of them at
once, lap out of the side of it with their little spoons. At the same
time she pushed the creasy yellow cover of cream to the farther side,
with a watchful glance at Trenholme's saucer, evidently meaning that it
was kept for him. She and the elder boy and girl waited to sup till the
little ones had finished.

Trenholme endeavoured to say that he should not want any more cream, but
she did not understand his words. He would have felt more concerned at
the partiality shown him if the youngsters had looked more in need of
cream; but they were, in truth, so round-faced and chubby, and so
evidently more pleased to stare at him with their big, black eyes than
grieved to lose the richest part of their milk, that he felt distress
would have been thrown way. All four little ones wore round knitted
caps, and their little heads, at uneven heights, their serious eyes
rolling upon him, and their greedy little mouths supping in the milk the
while, formed such an odd picture round the white disk of the milk-pan
that Trenholme could not help laughing. The greedy little feeders,
without dropping their spoons, looked to their mother to see whether
they ought to be frightened or not at such conduct on the stranger's
part, but seeing her smile, they concluded that they were safe.

Upon Trenholme's making further overtures of friendship, one or two of
them began to smile: the smile was infectious, it spread to all four,
and they began to laugh, and laughed in baby fashion quite immoderately.