hings go smoothly, and we were
all acting like Indians, and everything so confused at dinner, and hot
and noisy! So, later, when Paul and I and the others were walking, we
saw you and Doctor Tenison going up toward the graveyard, and I tore
home and told Mother he'd missed the five and would be back; it was
after five then, and we just flew!"

It was all like a pleasant awakening after a troubled dream. As
Margaret took her place at the little feast, she felt an exquisite
sensation of peace and content sink into her heart. Mother was so
gracious and charming, behind the urn; Rebecca irresistible in her
admiration of the famous professor. Her father was his sweetest self,
delightfully reminiscent of his boyhood, and his visit to the White
House in Lincoln's day, with "my uncle, the judge." But it was to her
mother's face that Margaret's eyes returned most often, she wanted--she
was vaguely conscious that she wanted--to get away from the voices
and laughter, and think about Mother. How sweet she was, just sweet,
and after all, how few people were that in this world! They were
clever, and witty, and rich,--plenty of them, but how little sweetness
there was! How few faces, like her mother's, did not show a line that
was not all tenderness and goodness.

They laughed over their teacups like old friends; the professor and
Rebecca shouting joyously together, Mr. Paget one broad twinkle, Mrs.
Paget radiantly reflecting, as she always did react, the others' mood.
It was a memorably happy hour.

And after tea they sat on the porch, and the stars came out, and
presently the moon sent silver shafts through the dark foliage of the
trees. Little Rob came home, and climbed silently, contentedly, into
his father's lap.

"Sing something, Mark," said Dad, then; and Margaret, sitting on the
steps with her head against her mother's knee, found it very simple to
begin in the darkness one of the old songs he loved:--

"Don't you cry, ma honey,
Don't you weep no more."

Rebecca, sitting on the rail, one slender arm flung above her head
about the pillar, joined her own young voice to Margaret's sweet and
steady one. The others hummed a little. John Tenison, sitting watching
them, his locked hands hanging between his knees, saw in the moonlight
a sudden glitter on the mother's cheek.

Presently Bruce, tired and happy and sunburned, came through the
splashed silver-and-black of the street to sit by Margaret, and put
his arm about h