"Yes. But do you have to KEEP all these things, and clean them
and clean them, like this, every day? Couldn't you give them to
somebody, or throw them away?"

"Throw--these--things--away!" With a wild sweep of her arms, the
horrified woman seemed to be trying to encompass in a protective
embrace each last endangered treasure of mat and tidy. "Boy, are
you crazy? These things are--are valuable. They cost money, and
time and--and labor. Don't you know beautiful things when you see
them?"

"Oh, yes, I love BEAUTIFUL things," smiled David, with
unconsciously rude emphasis. "And up on the mountain I had them
always. There was the sunrise, and the sunset, and the moon and
the stars, and my Silver Lake, and the cloud-boats that sailed--"

But Mrs. Holly, with a vexed gesture, stopped him.

"Never mind, little boy. I might have known--brought up as you
have been. Of course you could not appreciate such things as
these. Throw them away, indeed!" And she fell to work again; but
this time her fingers carried a something in their touch that was
almost like the caress a mother might bestow upon an aggrieved
child.

David, vaguely disturbed and uncomfortable, watched her with
troubled eyes; then, apologetically, he explained:--

"It was only that I thought if you didn't have to clean so many