inty white that was circling about not far away, and the
little figure in white was Judith's acquaintance of the beach.

One of the voices was a mother-voice--Judith was sure of that from the
tenderness in it. The other voice was just a plain _voice_, Judith
decided. It sounded interested and curious, and it began to ask
strange questions about the dainty little figure. Judith grew
interested, too--then, very interested indeed.

Suddenly Judith caught her breath in an inarticulate little cry. For
she could hear what the mother-voice was answering.

Chapter II.

"It seems very wonderful," the cool, interested voice said, a
little more interested, if anything.

"It seems glorious!" broke in the mother-voice; and the throb in it
beat upon Judith's heart through the waves of air between them.
Judith's heart was throbbing, too.

"You can't think how it 'seems,'--you don't know anything about it!"
the earnest, tremulous voice went on. "How can anyone know who never
had a little daughter?"

"I had one once." The other voice now was soft and earnest.

"But she walked. _Your_ little daughter walked. How can anyone know
whose little daughter always walk--"

"She never walked." It was very soft now, and the throb had crept
into it that was in the mother-voice and in Judith's heart. "I only
had her a year."

They were both mother-voices! Judith could not see, but she felt sure
the two sat up a little nearer to each other and their hands touched.

"Oh!--then you can know," the first voice said, after a tiny silence.
"I will tell you all about it--there have only been a few I have
wanted to tell. It has seemed almost too precious and--and--sacred."

"I know," the other said.

"But you must begin right at the beginning, with me--at the time when
my little daughter was a year old, when the time came for her to
learn to walk. That is where my story begins."

"And mine ends. Go on."

"Well, you can see how I must have watched and waited and planned."

"Oh, yes, and planned--_I_ planned."

"You poor dear!" Another tiny silence-space, while hand crept to
hand again, Judith was sure. Then the story went on.

"You say I ought to have known. Everybody says I ought to have.
_They_ knew, they say, and I was the baby's mother. The baby's mother
ought to have known. But that was just why. I was her mother--I
_wouldn't_ know. I kept putting it off. 'Wait,' I kept saying to
myself. 'She isn't old enough to walk yet; w