e Susy; for Dale and Beryl, after settling them
snugly in the old-fashioned farmhouse, (painted as white as white with a
new barn for the gentle-eyed cow, and a pen for the pigs, and a trim
little run-way for the chickens) had gone away, Dale to an engineering
college, Beryl to live with Miss Allendyce and take her precious violin
lessons, and lessons in languages and science. But Mother Moira was
never lonesome, for mere miles could not separate a heart like hers
from those she loved!

There had been significant changes in the village for her to watch
develop. The old Mill cottages had been torn down and across the river
had been built a cluster of white houses, each with its own yard "going
right around it," and trees and a bit of garden. There was a new school
house, too, and a new corps of teachers, and a hospital and a library.
Robin and her aunt had opened this only a month before.

And the House of Laughter had been enlarged to meet the increasing
demands upon it; there were rooms for the girls' clubs and the boys'
clubs, and a billiard room and a bowling alley, and an athletic field
with a basketball court and a baseball diamond.

(Sir Galahad in his scarlet coat still hung over the mantel which
Williams had built. Robin would not let anyone change that.)

Mrs. Riley lived in the upper floor of the House of Laughter and took
care of it.

The Manor car, with Madame Forsyth, passed often now through the streets
of the village and from it Madame nodded pleasantly to this person and
that, stopping sometimes to ask one Mill mother concerning her sick
child, another of her husband--and another whether she had finished the
knit bed-spread upon which Madame had found her working one afternoon
when she had called. Madame had herself regularly visited the new Mill
houses during the process of construction and took delight in dropping
in upon the newly organized school while classes were in session.

"I'll be the same proud, overbearing old lady," she had told her lawyer,
but she had been mistaken--she could never be quite that again, for she
had found too much pure delight in doing the little things Robin quite
artlessly suggested--little things which had not been easy at first and
which had seemed to demand too great a sacrifice of her pride.

The passing of time for the three at the Manor, Madame, Mrs. Budge and
Harkness, was marked, Mother Lynch well knew, by Robin's coming and
going. For, when her Jimmie had re