body
can see that. And she shows very plainly she's no notion of picking
anybody out yet. But of course I can't help being interested and
watching.

It won't be Mr. Harlow, anyway. I'm pretty sure of that, even if he
has started in to get his divorce. (And he has. I heard Aunt Hattie
tell Mother so last week.) But Mother doesn't like him. I'm sure she
doesn't. He makes her awfully nervous. Oh, she laughs and talks with
him--seems as if she laughs even more with him than she does with
anybody else. But she's always looking around for somebody else to
talk to; and I've seen her get up and move off just as he was coming
across the room toward her, and I'm just sure she saw him. There's
another reason, too, why I think Mother isn't going to choose him for
her lover. I heard something she said to him one day.

She was sitting before the fire in the library, and he came in. There
were other people there, quite a lot of them; but Mother was all alone
by the fireplace, her eyes looking fixed and dreamy into the fire. I
was in the window-seat around the corner of the chimney reading; and
I could see Mother in the mirror just as plain as could be. She could
have seen me, too, of course, if she'd looked up. But she didn't.

I never even thought of hearing anything I hadn't ought, and I was
just going to get down to go and speak to Mother myself, when Mr.
Harlow crossed the room and sat down on the sofa beside her.

"Dreaming, Madge?" he said, low and soft, his soulful eyes just
devouring her lovely face. (I read that, too, in a book last week. I
just loved it!)

Mother started and flushed up.

"Oh, Mr. Harlow!" she cried. (Mother always calls him "Mr." That's
another thing. He always calls her "Madge," you know.) "How do you
do?" Then she gave her quick little look around to see if there wasn't
somebody else near for her to talk to. But there wasn't.

"But you _do_ dream, of the old days, sometimes, Madge, don't you?" he
began again, soft and low, leaning a little nearer.

"Of when I was a child and played dolls before this very fireplace?
Well, yes, perhaps I do," laughed Mother. And I could see she drew
away a little. "There was one doll with a broken head that--"

"_I_ was speaking of broken hearts," interrupted Mr. Harlow, very
meaningfully.

"Broken hearts! Nonsense! As if there were such things in the world!"
cried Mother, with a little toss to her head, looking around again
with a quick little glance for some o