uty unspoiled. Anna had her
mother's ash-gold hair, but where Julia's rose firm and winglike from
her forehead, and was held in place by its own smooth, thick braids, the
little girl's fell in rich, shining waves, sprayed in fine mist across
her eyes, glittered, a golden mop in the sunlight, and even in the shade
threw out an occasional gleam of gold. Anna's eyes were blue, with
curled thick lashes like her mother's, but in the firm little mouth and
the poise of her head, in the quick smile and quicker frown, Julia saw
her father a hundred times a day. Her skin had the transparent porcelain
beauty of babyhood, there was a suggestion of violet shadow about her
eyes, and on her cheeks there glowed the warm colour of a ripe apricot.
Even the gingham aprons and sturdy little shoes which she customarily
wore did not disguise Anna's beauty. Julia trusted more to the child's
wise little head than to the faint hope that her own precautions could
ward off flattery and adulation. The two had been constant companions
for more than four years: Anna's little bed close to her mother's at
night, Anna's bright head never out of Julia's sight by day. If Anna
showed any interest in what her mother was reading, Julia gave her a
grave review of the story; if Julia went to market, Anna trotted beside
her, deeply concerned as to cuts of meat and choices among vegetables;
and when baking was afoot, Anna had a tiny moulding board on a chair,
and cut cookies or scalloped tarts with the deep enjoyment of the born
cook.

Once or twice the child had asked for her father, accepting quietly
enough the explanation that he was in Germany, and very busy.

"Aren't we going to see him some time, Mother?"

"Not while Grandma needs Mother so much, dear!" Julia would answer
easily.

Easily, because the busy months with their pain and joy, their problems
and their successes, had seemed to seal away in a deep crypt her
memories of her husband. Julia had been afraid to think of him at first;
she could not make herself think of him now; his image drifted vaguely
away from her, as unreal as a dream. He was as much a name as if she had
never seen him, never loved him, never suffered those exquisite agonies
of grief and shame with which the first year of their separation was
full. Jim's child had taken his place; the purity and sweetness of the
child's love filled Julia's heart; she wanted only Anna, and Anna was
her interpreter for all the relationships of li