pitiful story than she told me, between strangling
sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all
the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody
on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead.

"There is no use of your trying to make things different," she said,
"especially with mamma. She wouldn't care if I was dead too. But papa
could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love
you--oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged
me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me,
and I'll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma
and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so
much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every
one--every one calls me bad. I'm not bad. I love plenty of people who
can't love me. I am not bad, I tell you!"

She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her
face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her,
and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and
asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her
little heart was hungering for. He couldn't speak when I finished, and I
went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy's head with cologne, and looking
worn and tired.

Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him
rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive
way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful
and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day.

They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that
grieving household--the lonely father, and the selfish mother, and the
unloved child--hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead
baby, asleep under its weight of violets.

I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with
them.

VII

A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE

"I am myself indifferent honest."

I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest
myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people.

To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw
little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come r