there to see her girl.

She clasped them around the girl's neck now with fingers that trembled
and eyes bright with the tears which were always close to them. During
the little ceremony Dale burst in like a gust of strong, sweet air.

"Hullo, everybody! M'm'm, something smells good! What's for tonight,
Mom? Salt pork and thick gravy? Fried potatoes? Good! Hullo, Sis. How
goes it, Pop?" His greeting embraced everything and everyone in a rush,
from the savory supper to the invalid father whose face had brightened
at his coming.

"What're you getting all dolled up for, Sis?"

Beryl and her mother tried to tell the story at the same time. Dale did
not seem at all impressed and Beryl was disappointed. He said he had
heard in the mills that the newcomer at the Manor was a girl, and lame,
too. He didn't know what difference it made to any of them, anyway. He
scowled a little as he said it.

Dale had his father's strong body and his mother's face of a dreamer;
his eyes were brooding like Beryl's but his mouth was wide and tender
and might have seemed weak but for the strength in the square cut jaw.

Since that time, ten years back, when he had resolutely put behind him
his precious ambitions and had taken the first job he could find, he had
been the recognized head of the family. As such he turned to Beryl now.

"I suppose you'll let this rich little girl wipe her feet on you and
you'll love it," he said with such scorn that Beryl turned hot and cold
in speechless anger.

"Now, sonny, now, sonny. Let's wait until we know the poor little
thing," begged his mother.

But for Beryl, except for the fun of wearing the beads, all joy for the
moment had fled. She had particularly wanted to impress Dale with her
good fortune. She had often, of course, heard Dale speak scathingly and
bitterly of the "classes" and the "privileged few" and the unfairness of
things in general, but she had paid little attention to it and could
not, anyway, connect it with unassuming Robin. When he met Robin, he'd
understand--and while Dale ate ravenously and talked to his father
between mouthfuls, she planned how she would bring Robin to supper the
very next time she came home, despite her vow that she would never let
Robin see how humble and small her home was.

After supper Beryl helped her mother clear away and Dale brought out his
"plaything" which was what he laughingly called the contrivance of
strings and spools and little wooden wheels h