"Poor man," said Mrs. White. Tears of emotion actually filled her
eyes and mingled with the rheum of her cold. She took out her moist
ball of handkerchief again and dabbed both her eyes and nose.

Lillian looked at her half amusedly, half affectionately. "Mother,
you do beat the Dutch," said she.

Mrs. White actually snivelled. "I can't help remembering the time
when his poor first wife died," said she, "and how he and little
Maria came here to take their meals, poor souls. Harry Edgham was
just the one to be worked by a woman, poor fellow."

Lillian sucked her chocolate with a full sense of its sweetness. "Ma,
you can't keep track of all creation, nor cry over it," said she.
"You've got to leave it to the Lord. Have you taken your pink pellet?"

"Poor little Maria, too," said Mrs. White.

"Good gracious, ma, don't you take to worryin' over her," said
Lillian. "Here's your pink pellet. A young one dressed up the way she
was to-day!"

"Dress ain't everything, and nothin' is goin' to make me believe that
Ida Slome is a good mother to her, nor to her own child neither. It
ain't in her."

Lillian, approaching her mother at the window with the pink pellet
and a glass of water, uttered an exclamation. "For the land's sake,
there she is now!" she said. "Look, ma, there is Maria in her new