That's so," said Fanny. "I snum, I believe I could get into the
high-school myself, if I wasn't goin' to git married," said Eva,
with a gay laugh. She was so happy in those days that her power of
continued resentment was small. The tide of her own bliss returned
upon her full consciousness and overflowed, and crested, as with
glory, all petty annoyances.

The visiting woman took up her work, and rose to go with a slightly
abashed air, though her small brown eyes were still blanks of
impregnable defence. "Well, I dunno what I've said to stir you both
so," she remarked again. "If I've said anythin' that riled you, I'm
sorry, I'm sure. As I said before, folks must do as they are a mind
to with their own children. If they see fit to keep 'em home from
school until they're women grown, and if they think it's best not to
punish 'em when they run away, why they must. I 'ain't got no right
to say anythin', and I 'ain't."

"You--" began Fanny, and then she stopped short, and Eva began
arranging her hair before the glass. "The wind blew so comin' home,"
she said, "that my hair is all out." The visiting woman stared with
a motion of adjustive bewilderment, as one might before a sudden
change of wind, then she looked, as a shadowy motion disturbed the
even light of the room and little Ellen passed the window. She knew
at once, for she had heard the gossip, that the ready tongues of
recrimination were hushed because of the child, and then Ellen
entered.

The winter afternoon was waning and the light was low; the child's
face, with its clear fairness, seemed to gleam out in the room like
a lamp with a pale luminosity of its own.

The three women, the mother, and aunt, and the visiting neighbor,
all looked at her, and Ellen smiled up at them as innocently sweet
as a flower. There was that in Ellen's smile and regard at that time
which no woman could resist. Suddenly the visiting neighbor laid a
finger softly under her chin and tilted up her little face towards
the light. Then she said with that unconscious poetry of bereavement
which sees a likeness in all fair things of earth to the face of the
lost treasure, "I do believe she looks like my first little girl
that died."

After the visiting woman had gone, Fanny and Eva calling after her
to come again, they looked at each other, then at Ellen. "That
little girl that died favored the Stebbinses, and was dark as an
Injun," said Fanny, "no more like Ellen--"

"That's so," acqui