stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannah
beside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen,
and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon his
upper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time that
Ephraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered with
delight. She always coveted more of her son's society. But when he came
a third time she began to suspect trouble.

Mrs. Croom stood by the baking-board, her slender hands immersed in a
heap of pearly flour; baskets of scarlet currants lay at her feet. All
things in the kitchen shone by reason of her diligence, and the windows
were open to the summer sunshine. Susannah sat with a large pan of red
gooseberries beside her; she was picking them over one by one.
Somewhere in the outer kitchen the hired boy had been plucking a goose,
and some tiny fragments of the down were floating in the air. One of
them rode upon a movement of the summer air and danced before Susannah's
eyes. She put her pretty red lips beneath it and blew it upwards.

Mrs. Croom's suspicions concerning Ephraim had produced in her a desire
to reprove some one, but she refrained as yet.

Susannah having wafted the summer snowflake aloft, still sat, her young
face tilted upward like the faces of saints in the holy pictures, her
bright eyes fixed upon the feather now descending. Ephraim looked with
obvious pleasure. Her head was framed for him by the window; a dark
stiff evergreen and the summer sky gave a Raphaelite setting.

The feather dropped till it all but touched the tip of the girl's nose.
Then from the lips, puckered and rosy, came a small gust; the fragment
of down ascended, but this time aslant.

"You didn't blow straight enough up," said Ephraim.

Susannah smiled to know that her pastime was observed. The smile was a
flash of pleasure that went through her being. She ducked her laughing
face farther forward to be under the feather.

Mrs. Croom shot one glance at Ephraim, eager and happy in his watching.
She did what nothing but the lovelight in her son's face could have
caused her to do. She struck the girl lightly but testily on the side of
the face.

Ephraim was as foolish as are most men in sight of a damsel in distress.
He made no impartial inquiry into the real cause of trouble; he did not
seek Justice in her place of hiding. He stepped to his mother's side,
stern and determined, remembering onl