e woman's face. And all around were clustered the Thomas
children, unkempt as their mother, a gentle but degenerate brood, all
of them believing what their mother said. Viola May had come home again.
Silas Thomas was not there; he was trudging slowly homeward from a job
of wood-cutting. Jim saw only the mother, little Lucy, and that poor
little flock of children gazing in wonder and awe. Jim rushed in and
faced Sarah Thomas. "Give me little Lucy!" said he, as fiercely as any
man. But he reckoned without the unreasoning love of a mother. Sarah
only held little Lucy faster, and the poor little girl rolled appealing
eyes at him over that brawny, grasping arm of affection.

Jim raced for help, and it was not long before it came. Little Lucy rode
home in the victoria, seated in Sally Patterson's lap. "Mother, you take
her," Jim had pleaded; and Sally, in the face and eyes of Madame, had
gathered the little trembling creature into her arms. In her heart she
had not much of an opinion of any woman who had allowed such a darling
little girl out of her sight for a moment. Madame accepted a seat in
another carriage and rode home, explaining and sniffing and inwardly
resolving never again to have a straw-ride.

Jim stood on the step of the victoria all the way home. They passed poor
Miss Martha Rose, still faring toward the grove, and nobody noticed her,
for the second time. She did not turn back until the straw-wagon, which
formed the tail of the little procession, reached her. That she halted
with mad waves of her parasol, and, when told that little Lucy was
found, refused a seat on the straw because she did not wish to rumple
her best gown and turned about and fared home again.

The rectory was reached before Cyril Rose's house, and Cyril yielded
gratefully to Sally Patterson's proposition that she take the little
girl with her, give her dinner, see that she was washed and brushed
and freed from possible contamination from the Thomases, who were not a
cleanly lot, and later brought home in the rector's carriage. However,
little Lucy stayed all night at the rectory. She had a bath; her lovely,
misty hair was brushed; she was fed and petted; and finally Sally
Patterson telephoned for permission to keep her overnight. By that time
poor Martha had reached home and was busily brushing her best dress.

After dinner, little Lucy, very happy and quite restored, sat in Sally
Patterson's lap on the veranda, while Jim hovered near. His