and his mother entered softly, slipping through in her
voluminous, purple-flowered draperies, with glimpses of white frills
and large padding feet in purple-knitted slippers. She still wore her
frilled nightcap, and her face confronted him from the white setting
with a curious severity. Her hair was put up on crimping-pins, and
her high forehead gave her a rather intellectual and stern
appearance, and she looked much older.

Randolph rose. "Sit down, mother," he said.

"No; I am not going to stop a minute. I am going back to her. She
seemed real quiet, and I think she'll go to sleep, but if she should
wake up and find herself alone she might be frightened."

Mrs. Anderson spoke as if of a baby in arms.

"Yes, she might; she has had a terrible shock," Anderson said, in
what he essayed to render a natural tone.

"Terrible shock! I should think she had, poor child!" said Mrs.
Anderson, and she seemed to reproach him.

"It was a long way for her to come alone," said Anderson, as if he
were trying to excuse himself.

"I should think it was. It's a good mile, and that wasn't the worst
of it. Worrying about her father, and all alone in the house! I was
always scared to death alone in a house, and I know what it means."
She still seemed reproachful.

"She must have been frightened."

"I should rather think she would have been." Suddenly his mother's
face regarding his took on a different expression; it became shrewd
and confidential. "Do you suppose her father has taken this way
of--?" she said.

"No," answered Randolph, emphatically.

"You don't?"

"No, I do not. I don't know the man very well, and I don't suppose
his record is to be altogether justified, but, if I know anything, he
would no more go voluntarily and leave that child alone all night to
worry over him than I would."

"Then you think something has happened to him?"

"I am afraid so."

"Do you think there has been an accident?"

"I don't know, mother."

His mother continued to look at him shrewdly. "Do you suppose he has
got into any trouble?" she asked, bluntly.

"I don't know, mother."

Then Mrs. Anderson's face suddenly resumed its old, reproachful
expression. "Well, I don't care if there has," said she. She
whispered, but her voice was intense. "I don't care if there has. I
don't care if he is in state-prison. That child has got to caring
about you, and you ought to--"

Anderson turned and looked at his mother, and her severe face
s