of the lips over the pound-cake. Then she looked scrutinizingly at
her son. "But," she said, "I do believe she was right, Randolph,
about your looks."

"Nonsense," said Randolph, laughing.

It was a warm night. After supper they both went out on the front
porch. Mrs. Anderson sat gazing at her son from between the folds of
a little, white lace kerchief which she wore over her head, to guard
against possible dampness.

"Randolph," said she, after a while.

"What is it, mother, dear?"

"Do you feel well?"

"Of course I feel well. Why?"

"You look too well to be natural," said she, slowly.

"Mother, what an absurdity!"

"It is so," said she. "I had not noticed it until Mrs. Gregg spoke,
but I see it now. I don't know where my eyes have been. You look too
well."

Randolph laughed. "Now, mother, don't you think that sounds foolish?"

Mrs. Anderson continued to regard him with an expression of maternal
love and severity, which pierced externals more keenly than an X-ray.
"No," said she, "I do not think it is foolish. You look too well to
be natural. You look this minute as young in your face as you did
when I had you in petticoats."

Randolph laughed loudly at that, but his mother was quite earnest.

She was not satisfied, and continued arguing the matter until she
became afraid of the increasing dampness and went into the house, and
the son drew a breath of relief. The mother little dreamed, with all
her astuteness, of what was really transpiring. She did not know that
when she had seated herself beside her son on the porch she had
displaced with her gentle, elderly materiality the sweetest phantom
of a beloved young girl. She did not know that when she entered the
house the delicate, evanescent thing returned swifter than thought
itself, and filled with the sweet presence that vacuum in her son's
heart which she herself had never filled, and nestled there through a
delicious hour of the summer night. She did not dream, as she sat by
the window, staring out drowsily into the soft shadows and heard no
murmur from her son on the porch, that in reality the silence of his
soul was broken by words and tones which she had never heard from his
lips, although she had brought him into the world.

Anderson never admitted to himself the possibility of his dreams
coming true. While his self-respect never wavered, while he viewed
himself with no unworthy disparagement, he still saw himself as he
was: verging towards