every one, and a
good friend always, and just one of us, and his sickness making him seem
like our own, and--"

"Oh, hush--will you hush, mother!" interposed Kitty sharply. "He's going
away with her back to the old country, and we might just as well think
about getting other borders, for I suppose Mr. Bulrush and his bonny
bride will set up a little bulrush tabernacle on the banks of the
Nile"--she nodded in the direction of the river outside--"and they'll
find a little Moses and will treat it as their very own."

"Kitty, how can you!"

Kitty shrugged a shoulder. "It would be ridiculous for that pair to have
one of their own. It's only the young mother with a new baby that looks
natural to me."

"Don't talk that way, Kitty," rejoined her mother sharply. "You aren't
fit to judge of such things."

"I will be before long," said her daughter. "Anyway, Mrs. Crozier isn't
any better able to talk than I am," she added irrelevantly. "She never
was a mother."

"Don't blame her," said Mrs. Tynan severely. "That's God's business. I'd
be sorry for her, so far as that was concerned, if I were you. It's not
her fault."

"It's an easy way of accounting for good undone," returned Kitty.
"P'r'aps it was God's fault, and p'r'aps if she had loved him more--"

Mrs. Tynan's face flushed with sudden irritation and that fretful look
came to her eyes which accompanies a lack of comprehension. "Upon my
word, well, upon my word, of all the vixens that ever lived, and you
looking like a yellow pansy and too sweet for daily use! Such thoughts
in your head! Who'd have believed that you--!"

Kitty made a mocking face at her mother. "I'm more than a girl, I'm
a woman, mother, who sees life all around me, from the insect to the
mountain, and I know things without being told. I always did. Just life
and living tell me things, and maybe, too, the Irish in me that father
was."

"It's so odd. You're such a mixture of fun and fancy, at least you
always have been; but there's something new in you these days. Kitty,
you make me afraid--yes, you make your mother afraid. After what you
said the other day about Mr. Crozier I've had bad nights, and I get
nervous thinking."

Kitty suddenly got up, put her arm round her mother and kissed her.
"You needn't be afraid of me, mother. If there'd been any real danger, I
wouldn't have told you. Mr. Crozier's away, and when he comes back he'll
find his wife here, and there's the end of everything. If there