``Whereis your mama?'' asked the lady, taking fast hold of the little
hand that patted her hand.

``Everybody has a mama--never mind--''

``But where is your mama?'' asked the lady again.

Bessie Bell had begun to wonder and so had forgotten to answer.

``Child, where is your mama?'' said the lady again, still holding
fast to Bessie Bell's hand.

``But--I don't know,'' said Bessie Bell.

Then the lady looked as if she had begun to wonder, too, and she
seemed to be looking away off; away off, but how closely she held
Bessie Bell's hand--closer than Sister Angela, or Sister Theckla, or
even Sister Helen Vincula, or Sister Justina--

Then Bessie Bell began to wonder still more, and to remember, as the
lady held fast to her little fingers. She began to talk her
thinking out loud, and she said: ``Yes, there was a window--where
everything was green, and, small, and moving--but Sister Justina
said there was not any window like that in the whole world--''

The lady held Bessie Bell's hand very hard, and she said--softly, as
if she, too, was talking her thinking aloud:

``Yes, there was a window like that in the world, for just outside