to guess she had too controlling an interest in that
comprehensive mystery which was his life. How horrible beyond measure if
she took over Aunt Anne's frantic task of beneficent guidance! Rookie
should be free. He began to laugh, and, without waiting for the reason,
she joined him.

"Maybe I will," he said, "the Malay prescription, half of it. But I
should want you with me. You may not be little, but you're a great Nan
to play with. We won't drag Tira's name into it," he added gravely.
"Poor Tira's name! We'll take good care of it."

"Oh, I'll go," said Nan recklessly. "But we'll take Tira. And we'll
build her a temple in a jungle and put her up on a pedestal and feed her
with tropical fruits and sit cross-legged before her so many hours a day
and meditate on her mystery."

"What would she say?" Raven wondered, and then laughed out in a quick
conviction. "No, she wouldn't say anything. She'd accept it, as she does
foddering the cows."

"Certainly," said Nan. "That's Tira."

"You've forgotten the baby."

"Yes," said Nan, soberly. "Poor little boy!"

They were serious and could play no more, and presently turned into the
back road and so home. At supper they had a beautiful time, the lights
soft, the fire purring, and the shades up so that the cold austerities
of night could look in without getting them. Nan had done a foolish
thing, one of those for which women can give no reason, for usually they
do not know which one it is out of the braided strands of all the
reasons that make emotion. She had unearthed a short pink crepe frock
she used to wear in her childish days, and let her heavy hair hang in
two braids tied with pink ribbons. Did she want to lull Rookie's
new-born suspicion of her as a too mature female thing, by stressing the
little girl note, or did she slip into the masquerading gown because it
was restful to go back the long road that lay between the present and
the days when there was no war? Actually she did not know. She did know
she had flown wildly "up attic," the minute Rookie announced the daring
plan of the visit, and flung open chest after chest, packed by Aunt
Anne's exact hands, with this and that period of her clothes. Why had
Aunt Anne kept them, she straightened herself to wonder, at one point,
throwing them out in a disorderly pile, ginghams, muslins, a favorite
China silk. Could it be Aunt Anne had loved her, not so much as she
loved Rookie, but in the same hidden, inflexible way, and