"I guess--I'll stay!" Mrs. Porter said uncertainly, following her to
the big book closet off the schoolroom, where a little gas stove and
a small china closet occupied one wide shelf. The water for the tea
and bouillon was put over the flame in a tiny enamelled saucepan;
they set forth on a fringed napkin crackers and sugar and spoons.

At this point, a small girl of eleven with a brilliant, tawny head,
and a wide and toothless smile, opened the door cautiously, and said,
blinking rapidly with excitement,--

"Mark, Mother theth pleath may thee come in?"

This was Rebecca, one of Margaret's five younger brothers and
sisters, and a pupil of the school herself. Margaret smiled at
the eager little face.

"Hello, darling! Is Mother here? Certainly she can! I believe,"--she
said, turning, suddenly radiant, to Mrs. Porter,--"I'll just bet you
she's brought us some lunch!"

"Thee brought uth our luncheth--eggth and thpith caketh and everything!"
exulted Rebecca, vanishing, and a moment later Mrs. Paget appeared.

She was a tall woman, slender but large of build, and showing, under a
shabby raincoat and well pinned-up skirt, the gracious generous lines
of shoulders and hips, the deep-bosomed erect figure that is rarely
seen except in old daguerreotypes, or the ideal of some artist two
generations ago. The storm to-day had blown an unusual color into her
thin cheeks, her bright, deep eyes were like Margaret's, but the hair