declared Amanda with a vigorous toss of her red head.

"Come, come," Mrs. Reist interrupted, "you mustn't quarrel. Of course
Lyman would help his mother if she needed him."

Amanda laughed and friendliness was once more restored.

When the last apple was snitzed Uncle Amos brought some cold cider from
the spring-house, Millie fetched a dish of cookies from the cellar, and
the snitzing party ended in a feast.

That night Mrs. Reist followed Amanda up the stairs to the child's
bedroom. They made a pretty picture as they stood there, the mother
with her plain Mennonite garb, her sweet face encircled by a white cap,
and the little red-haired child, eager, active, her dark eyes glimpsing
dreams as they focused on the distant castles in Spain which were a
part of her legitimate heritage of childhood. The room was like a
Nutting picture, with its rag carpet, old-fashioned, low cherry bed,
covered with a pink and white calico patchwork quilt, its low cherry
bureau, its rush-bottom chairs, its big walnut chest covered with a
hand-woven coverlet gay with red roses and blue tulips. An old-
fashioned room and an old-fashioned mother and daughter--the elder had
seen life, knew its glories and its dangers, had tasted its sweetness
and drained its cups of sorrow, but the child--in her eyes was still
the star-dust of the "trailing clouds of glory."

"Mom," she asked suddenly as her mother unbraided the red hair and
brushed it, "do you like Lyman Mertzheimer?"

"Why--yes---" Mrs. Reist hesitated.