then quickly disappeared. When he
reached the door she was there, filling it up with her large figure
in its voluminous white draperies.

"What--" she began, but Randolph interrupted her.

"Mother, this is Miss Carroll," he said. "She is not hurt, but she
has had a terrible fright and shock. Her people are all away from
home, and I brought her here; it was nearer. I want her to have some
wine, and rest, and get over it before she goes home."

Mrs. Anderson hesitated one second. It was a pause for the gathering
together of wits suddenly summoned for new and surprising
emergencies; then she rose to the occasion. She had her faults and
her weaknesses, but she was one of the women in whom the maternal
instinct is a power, and this girl appealed to it. She stretched
forth her white-clad arms, and she drew her away almost forcibly from
her son.

"You poor child!" said she, in a voice which harked back to her son's
babyhood. "Come right in. You go and get a glass of that port-wine,"
said she to Randolph, and she gave him a little push. She enveloped
and pervaded the girl in a voluminous embrace.

Charlotte felt the soft panting of a mother's bosom under her head as
she was led into the house. "You poor, blessed child," a soft voice
cooed in her ear, a soft voice and yet a voice of strength.
Charlotte's own mother had never been in the fullest sense a mother
to her; a large part of the spiritual element of maternity had been
lacking; but here was a woman who could mother a race, if once her
heart of maternal love was awakened.

Charlotte was not led; that did not seem to be the action. She felt
as if she were borne along by sustaining wings spread under her
weakness into a large, cool bedroom opening out of the sitting-room.
Then her dress was taken off, in what wise she scarcely knew; she was
enrobed in one of Mrs. Anderson's large, white wrappers, and was laid
tenderly in a white bed, where presently she was sipping a glass of
port-wine, with Mrs. Anderson sitting behind her and supporting her
head.

"No, you can't come in, Randolph," she heard her say to her son, and
her voice sounded almost angry. After Charlotte had swallowed the
wine, she lay back on the pillow, and she heard Mrs. Anderson talking
softly to her in a sort of delicious dream, caused partly by the
wine, which had mounted at once to her head, and partly by the sense
of powerful protection and perfect peace and safety.

"Poor lamb!" Mrs. Anderson s