bit so that one blue eye
might investigate the carriage and those in it. "Deanie's too little to
work in the mill," Johnnie went on. "They have night turn over there at
the Victory now, and it'll just about make her sick."

Miss Lydia frowned.

"Oh, John, I think you are mistaken," she said coldly. "The work is very
light--you know that. Young people work a great deal harder racing about
in their play than at anything they have to do in a spooling room--I'm
sure my nieces and nephews do. And in your case it is necessary and
right that the younger members of the family should help. I think you
will find that it will not hurt them."

Individuals who work in cotton mills, and are not adults, are never
alluded to as children. It is an offense to mention them so. They are
always spoken of--even those scarcely more than three feet high--as
"young people."

Miss Sessions had smiled upon the piteous little group with a judicious
mixture of patronage and mild reproof, and her driver had shaken the
lines over the backs of the fat horses preparatory to moving on, when
Stoddard's car turned into the street from the corner above.

"Wait, Junius, Dick is afraid of autos," cautioned Miss Lydia nervously.

Junius grinned respectfully, while bay Dick dozed and regarded the
approaching car philosophically. As they stood, they blocked the way, so
that Gray was obliged to slow down and finally to stop. He raised his
hat ceremoniously to both groups. His pained eyes went past Lydia
Sessions as though she had been but the painted representation of a
woman, to fasten themselves on Johnnie where she stood, her tall,
deep-bosomed figure relieved against the shining water, the
flaxen-haired child on her breast, the little ones huddled about her.

That Johnnie Consadine should have fallen away all at once from that
higher course she had so eagerly chosen and so resolutely maintained,
had been to Gray a disappointment whose depth and bitterness somewhat
surprised him. In vain he recalled the fact that all his theories of
life were against forcing a culture where none was desired; he went back
to it with grief--he had been so sure that Johnnie did love the real
things, that hers was a nature which not only wished, but must have,
spiritual and mental food. Her attitude toward himself upon their few
meetings of late had confirmed a certain distrust of her, if one may use
so strong a word. She seemed afraid, almost ashamed to face him. What
wa