said only:
"Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought
to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. Put it down, I
say!"

She did not move. "Will you please turn your head away a whole minute?"
she finally asked.

He did so, somewhat to his own surprise. He was unaccustomed to obeying
others. When he turned again, she uttered a cry: "Why didn't you keep
your head turned the other way till I told you to look," she exclaimed,
indignantly. "You don't play fair."

"See here, little girl," he commenced, when his eyes fell to her foot,
which for the moment she had forgotten, a small black-shod foot with two
protruding toes. "Eh, what's that!"

"My toes!" she answered. Her face flamed, then with sudden anger against
him, against circumstances, against everything that had conspired to
spoil this beautiful and long-dreamed-of day: "They're sticking through
my slipper. That's why I had to sit on my foot. That's why my leg went
to sleep. That's why I couldn't go out in the garden with the others."

He began to laugh, silently, mirthlessly, but it was laughter
nevertheless. Suzanna regarded him, her quick temper getting beyond her
control. At last she burst forth: "You're a rude man! And it isn't funny
to miss beautiful things, the flowers and the baby squirrels, and
perhaps lemonade."

He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said:

"Agreed! But it's certainly funny to see your toes sticking through your
shoe. No wonder you sat on your foot." Still, despite his discourteous
words, his tone changed; it was almost apologetic.

Suzanna's face lost its clouds. "Of course, I had to sit on my foot,"
she agreed. "I couldn't let Miss Massey see how mother put a black
ribbon bag on my slippers to make them longer, could I? She wouldn't
understand like you do, would she?"

"Do I understand? I wonder. Well, why did your mother put on the black
ribbon?"

"The shoes were too short!"

"She should have bought you a new pair."

Suzanna sprang from her chair and went to the big man.

"Do you know what rent week means?" she asked, lifting her earnest face
to his and standing so close that her hand touched his knee.

"I think I do," he answered.

"Well, this is rent week and Peter's coat was out at the elbows and two
of us needed shoes and the insurance was due on all of us and mother
can't let that go. It came in very handy when Helen, Peter's twin, went
away."

"What do you mean by 'went