e is right over there," pointed Maizie.

Then the gardener's glance fell upon the little girl, with her head bent
as she still wept.

"She's crying awfully hard," said Suzanna to the gardener. "Do you know
whose little girl she is?"

"She's mine," said the man with a big world of tenderness in his voice.
"She's my little Daphne."

"We thought she was crying because her doll was broken," said Suzanna.
"Then she said it had the whooping cough and kept you awake all night
and I asked her why her mother didn't make some flaxseed tea for it."

A swift shadow darkened David's fine face and he shaded his eyes with
his hand. Then he went to the little girl and raised her as though she
were one of his carefully cherished flowers. Her sobs ceased as she
found herself in her father's arms.

"You see," said her father, "she has no mother!"

Now the children knew by his tone and by the extreme sadness in his eyes
that the little Daphne's mother had gone away never to return. And they
knew it must be the saddest thing in the world to be without a mother;
one who was always ready to understand even if you had to wait till the
baby was hushed, or the bread looked at in the oven. The understanding
did come, sure and tender; a mother who sometimes smiled at you in that
complete, deep way, as Suzanna's mother had smiled at her the day she
wore her leghorn hat with the daisies.

"Can Daphne play with us?" asked Suzanna after awhile. "And can we take
her home to see our mother?"

The man's face brightened at this. "Why, that will be fine," he said.
"Perhaps you'd like to play here in the grounds for awhile. Then Daphne
can go home with you. You're the Procter children, aren't you? I've
talked often with your father when I've bought things in the hardware
shop. I'm coming sometime to see his machine."

"Yes," said Suzanna, "but how did you know we were the Procter children?
We didn't tell you our name. Did Graham?"

"No," said the man, "but you're the living image of your father. You
look at a person just like he does, out of your big dark eyes."

Suzanna flushed. There was nothing in all the world she so loved to hear
as that she looked like her father.

Little Daphne had ceased crying and her father carried her up the narrow
winding stairs to their own quarters. Shortly he returned again. The
little girl now wore a pretty lace-trimmed bonnet mother-made, one knew
at once, and a little white cape. She was a very charming and