wn: "Are you
coming--_mother_--"

Suzanna's voice choked on the word, but Mrs. Reynolds heard only the
exquisite title. She lifted her face, glowing like a heaven of stars.

"I'm coming, Suzanna," she called. And she went swiftly up the stairs to
the little girl. "This night you sleep under the silk coverlet--and more
I couldn't do for royalty!"

CHAPTER VII

REGRETS

Suzanna woke the next morning to a realization that she was in a strange
place. She occupied a large bed, too large, it seemed to her, for one
small girl. And even the silken coverlet failed to assuage the sudden
wave of homesickness which threatened to engulf her.

She lay thinking. A clock on the dresser showed her the hour to be
seven. Maizie would be up and downstairs. She would have buttoned Peter
and would be carrying the blue dishes from the pantry to the
dining-room. Father would be in the attic for a glance at his beloved
Machine before obeying mother's cheerful call to breakfast.

Suzanna choked back a lump insistent upon rising to her throat. Across
the way was home and she had adopted herself out of it! Here all was
quiet, and comfortable, very comfortable. The mattress was thick, her
small body quite sank into its depths; the bed she shared with Maizie,
she had realized on occasions, had lumps, and no silken coverlet
spreading itself brilliantly. Still there were rare and beautiful
compensations for the lack of thick mattresses and silken coverlets--and
greatest grief to her of all was that she stood no longer a daughter to
a great man!

The tears came perilously near. Suzanna choked them back as she heard
"Reynolds" close the front gate with what to him was a gentle click. She
felt that in a moment Mrs. Reynolds would summon her downstairs to a
breakfast hot and delicious.

_Why had she left home if she loved it so!_

The sentence formed itself in her mind.

Well, she hadn't realized that home and those in it were so dear till
she left. And her reason was a good one. It had seemed she could
scarcely live possessed of a dress whose sweet possibilities were denied
by a mother's spirit of economy. Never had she so intensely wished for
anything as for the goods to be cut away from under the rows of lace.

Still now, lying there alone in her strange surroundings, that desire
was losing its poignancy. It didn't seem quite to fill her entire
universe.

Mrs. Reynolds put her head inside the door. She wore a crisp blue and
wh