a
poverty that denied them all those jolly sort of advantages young girls
liked, and yet each sheltered by a mother's great love from the things
in poverty that coarsen and hurt. "Aye, a mother's love," and the little
lawyer thought of "Mother Lynch" with something very akin to reverence;
and of Jimmie, too, poor Jimmie, who, in his stumbling, mistaken way,
had tried to give a mother's love to Robin.

But suddenly the man aroused from his absorbed philosophizing and sat
bolt upright in bed. All right to think about letting down
barriers--whose barriers were they? Proud old Madame loved those
barriers--and she'd never accept, as Budge had, what Budge called the
"new ways." What then? "There'll be a reckoning--"

With a sharp little exclamation of annoyance the distraught guardian
drew his watch from under his pillow and held it to the tiny shaft of
light. "Half-past-one!" Well, he did not need to cross that bridge until
he came to it! He dug his tired head into his pillow and went to sleep
to dream of Madame Forsyth and Robin and Jeanne d'Arc sitting in a
social club at the House of Laughter.

CHAPTER XXI

AT THE GRANGER MILLS

"I really think, little Miss Robin, that you ought to go."

"Why, I should think you'd be _crazy_ to go!"

"If I may be so bold's to remind you, the man is waiting for an answer."

Robin looked from her guardian's face to Beryl's to Harkness'.

"You're all conspiring against me, I do believe!" she cried. "I'll go if
you say I ought to, but I just hate to. I don't want to meet the young
people, there. And I'm dreadfully afraid of Mrs. Granger since Susy
spoiled her dress."

"Mrs. Granger was one of your Aunt Mathilde's closest friends--until the
death of young Christopher. Then, in the strange mood your aunt
encouraged, she let the intimacy drop. I've often wondered if the
Grangers did not resent that. You have an opportunity now, Robin, to
restore the old terms between the two families, so that when your--aunt
returns she will find the old tie awaiting her."

Robin stared, wide-eyed, at her guardian. It was the first time he had
spoken of her aunt's return.

"When is my aunt coming back? Do you know I never _think_ of her coming
back? Isn't that dreadful? I know she won't like me--"

"Don't let's worry about that now," broke in Cornelius Allendyce with
suspicious haste. And Harkness, standing stiffly by the table, waiting
instructions, fell suddenly to rearranging the book