were, as if they had been dipped in new
milk. Her chest was fuller than when she went away, her breasts rounder
and firmer, and though she was so white where she was uncovered, they
looked rosy through the thin muslin. Her body had the elasticity that
comes of being highly charged with the desire to live. Her hair, hanging
in two loose braids, one by either cheek, was just enough disordered to
catch the light in all its curly ends.

Thea always woke with a pink flush on her cheeks, and this morning her
mother thought she had never seen her eyes so wide-open and bright; like
clear green springs in the wood, when the early sunlight sparkles in
them. She would make a very handsome woman, Mrs. Kronborg said to
herself, if she would only get rid of that fierce look she had
sometimes. Mrs. Kronborg took great pleasure in good looks, wherever she
found them. She still remembered that, as a baby, Thea had been the
"best-formed" of any of her children.

"I'll have to get you a longer bed," she remarked, as she put the tray
on the table. "You're getting too long for that one."

Thea looked up at her mother and laughed, dropping back on her pillow
with a magnificent stretch of her whole body. Mrs. Kronborg sat down
again.

"I don't like to press you, Thea, but I think you'd better sing at that
funeral to-morrow. I'm afraid you'll always be sorry if you don't.
Sometimes a little thing like that, that seems nothing at the time,
comes back on one afterward and troubles one a good deal. I don't mean
the church shall run you to death this summer, like they used to. I've
spoken my mind to your father about that, and he's very reasonable. But
Maggie talked a good deal about you to people this winter; always asked
what word we'd had, and said how she missed your singing and all. I
guess you ought to do that much for her."

"All right, mother, if you think so." Thea lay looking at her mother
with intensely bright eyes.

"That's right, daughter." Mrs. Kronborg rose and went over to get the
tray, stopping to put her hand on Thea's chest. "You're filling out
nice," she said, feeling about. "No, I wouldn't bother about the
buttons. Leave 'em stay off. This is a good time to harden your chest."

Thea lay still and heard her mother's firm step receding along the bare
floor of the trunk loft. There was no sham about her mother, she
reflected. Her mother knew a great many things of which she never
talked, and all the church people were for