ake a swimming lesson;
Graham was going out to Highacres to practice football; Isobel said she
preferred to stay home; "one of the girls" had promised to call up, she
explained, a little evasively.

Mrs. Westley smothered the tiniest of sighs behind a smile; Isobel was
living so apart from the rest of the family, she never seemed, now, to
want to share the activities of the others. Her mother had always
enjoyed, so much, taking her biggest girl everywhere with her; she had
not believed that the time could come when Isobel would refuse to go.

Driving through the city with Jerry and Gyp beside her, Mrs. Westley,
still thinking of Isobel, turned suddenly to Jerry.

"_How_ your mother must miss _you_, dear," she said. Jerry was startled.

"Oh, do you think so?" she answered, anxiously.

"I mean--I was just thinking--mother love is such a _hungry_ love,
dear."

"Well----" Jerry, very thoughtful, tried to recall the exact words her
mother had once used. "When I was little, mother used to tell me a
story. She said that her heart was a little garden with a very high wall
built of love and that I lived there, as happy as could be, for the sun
was always shining and everything was bright and the wall kept away all
the horrid things. But there was a gate in the wall with a latch-way
high up; I had to grow big before I could lift the latch and go through
the wall--and she made lovely flowers grow over the little gate, too, so
that perhaps I might not find it! I always liked the story, but once I
asked mother what she'd do if I found the gate and went out of the
garden for just a little while and she answered me that the garden would
be very quiet, but the sun would go on shining because our love was
there. Now I'm older I think I understand the story, and maybe coming
here was like going through the gate. But if it _is_ like the story,
then mother knows how much I love her, so she won't be _dreadfully_
lonely--only a little bit, maybe."

"What a beautiful story," Mrs. Westley's eyes glistened. "I would like
to hear her tell it! Some day I want to know your mother, Jerry."

That was such a pleasant thought--her dear mother meeting Mrs. Westley,
who was almost as nice as her mother--that Jerry's face grew bright
again. She answered the pressure of Mrs. Westley's fingers with an
affectionate squeeze.

Except for the first dreadful ordeal of facing her schoolmates and the
hurt of Isobel's unkindness, Jerry had suffered littl