cottage to the left. The voice had come from the narrow piazza.
Millicent shivered as she looked at it, with its gingerbread
decorations already succumbing to the strain of the seasons. The
answer came from the tent:

"Here I am, muvver. Did you want me?"

She came out--a child of five or six years. The round-eyed solemnity
of babyhood had not left her yet. She brought her small doll family
with her, and a benevolent collie ambled beside her. Her mother
watched, tenderness beautifying her brown eyes: she was a young woman,
no older than Millicent, but her face was more lined than Anna's; a
strand of dark hair was blown across her cheek; there were fruit
stains on her apron. All the marks of a busy household life were about
her, all the bounteous restfulness of a woman well beloved, and the
anxieties of a loving woman. She gave the automobile a passing glance,
but it had no interest for her. Her eyes came back to caress the young
thing which toiled up the steps to her, babbling of a morning's events
in the tent.

"Yes, sweetheart, that was very nice," she said, in answer to some
breathless demand for sympathy. "And mother has brought you the bread
and jam she promised you this morning. Will you eat it here, or in the
tent?"

"Couldn't I come into the kitchen to eat it, where you are?"

"Why, yes, honey, if you want to."

The door closed upon the vision of intimate love. Millicent saw Lena