ing up and down in front of his canvas and paid no
attention to me for the longest time. Then he said we might as well go
on, and I suppose he worked for another hour. He stopped suddenly and
told me I could take off the queer shawl he'd put about my shoulders and
run away. He warned me to be on time to-morrow, because he didn't like
to wait. After that he took his hat and went away and his Japanese man
showed me out, when I was ready."

"I told you it wouldn't be so dreadfully hard," said Frieda, "and
Gordon, in spite of his queer ways, is a very nice and decent fellow. He
paints like an angel, he does, but he's as cold-blooded about his work
as a pawnbroker."

"I'm glad," said Frances. "It makes it much easier."

I poured out the tea and produced a small box of vanilla wafers, which
Frieda is ever so fond of.

"I wonder Gordon didn't get mad, when Baby Paul began to scream," she
said.

"My dear," I remarked, "a man generally gets angry only at the
unexpected. He had made up his mind that the weather would be squally
and would have been rather disappointed if no shower had come. Before I
had the pleasure of Master Paul's acquaintance, I mistakenly thought
that every interval between waking and feeding, in a baby's life, must
be taken up with lusty shrieking. I'm positively frightened and
hopeless, sometimes, when I think of how much there is for me to learn.
I know I'll never catch up."

"You know good tea, for one thing," answered Frieda. "Give me another
cup."

I complied, and, presently, Frances, at our urging, sat down to the old
piano and played something that was very pretty and soft. And then the
old desire to sing must have come upon her, suddenly, for her low and
husky voice brought forth a few words of a sweet, old French song. This,
all at once, must have evoked some of the memories that weighed so
heavily upon her heart. Her hands went up to her face and she sobbed.
Frieda rose, swiftly and silently, and put her big, able hand upon the
girl's shoulder.

"I--I can't even sing to my baby!" Frances moaned.

What a cry from the heart! All else would have amounted to so little, if
she could only have poured out some of the melody in her soul to the
poor little mite. She was brave; working for Baby Paul was of small
moment; even the loss of the gallant soldier lad who had poured his
stream of life for the motherland was not for the moment the paramount
source of her distress. No! She could not sing