fting her handsome almond eyes to
Aunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel did not see the long, furtive, curious glance.
Her own eyes were closed, as if she was tired; her cheeks were smiling;
one of them had dropped a little to one shoulder, as it might have
dropped had she held in her arms a babe; and she was rocking, softly,
slowly, the rocker of the chair making a little regular noise on the
polished floor.

The gipsy woman beckoned to one of the children.

"Tell the lady, when she wakes, that I will tack a strip of felt to the
rocker, and then it will make no noise at all," said the low and
wheedling voice; and the child retired again.

The interment of Flora proceeded....

An hour later Flora had taken up the burden of Life again. It was as
Angela, the youngest, was chastising her for some offence, that Sabrina,
the eldest, looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling.
She approached on tiptoe.

"May I look at it, please?" she asked timidly.

The gipsy set one shoulder forward, and Sabrina put the shawl gently
aside, peering at the dusky brown morsel within.

"Sometime, perhaps--if I'm very careful--"

Sabrina ventured diffidently, "--if I'm _very_ careful--may I hold it?"

Before replying, the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards Aunt
Rachel's chair. Aunt Rachel had been awakened for the conclusion of
Flora's funeral, but her eyes were closed again now, and once more her
cheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture, and she
rocked. But you could see that she was not properly asleep.... It was,
somehow, less to Sabrina, still peering at the babe in the sling, than to
Aunt Rachel, apparently asleep, that the gipsy seemed to reply.

"You'll know some day, little missis, that a wean knows its own pair of
arms," her seductive voice came.

And Aunt Rachel heard. She opened her eyes with a start. The little
regular noise of the rocker ceased. She turned her head quickly;
tremulously she began to knit again; and, as her eyes rested on the
sidelong eyes of the gipsy woman, there was an expression in them that
almost resembled fright.

II

They began to deck the great hall-kitchen for Christmas, but the snow
still lay thick over hill and valley, and the gipsies' caravans remained
by the broken wall where the drifts had overtaken them. Though all the
chairs were mended, Annabel still came daily to the farm, sat on the box
they used to cover the sewing machine, and wove mats. As she