upon the awaiting toast.

"You're awful quick, Mrs. Reynolds," she started to say when a knock
sounded upon the door.

The door slowly opened and, alone, Suzanna's mother entered.

She stood just looking in. She was pale, her eyes wide, languid, shadows
beneath them as though she had not slept. But those same tired eyes
lightened as they fell upon Suzanna.

"Mother-eyes," the phrase grew in Suzanna's heart. She should never in
all her life forget that look of longing, of love.

And somehow another impression, new, almost unbelievable, came to
Suzanna. Her mother was _young_, for wasn't that yearning note in her
voice; that tentative little gesture; her whole questioning attitude,
all her seekings, but expressions of her youngness? She wasn't after all
far removed from her little daughter, not for this minute, anyway. A
delicious sense of comradeship with this mother flooded the child.

And the mother stood and looked at her child, almost as for the first
time, at least with a sense of newness, as though Suzanna had been born
anew to her.

In the night a far reaching understanding had come to her. It came out
of her conclusion to strike a blow at the child's oversensitiveness by a
full dose of ridicule; by accusing her of affectation, a clever playing
to the gallery; this when the night was early, and the mother still
aching with weariness from the day's many tasks. And then as the hours
wore on, and the quiet soothed her weary nerves, the knowledge came,
flashing out of the ether, as often it does for serious mothers, that
the gift of keen sensibility, of intense desire was too valuable to be
quenched.

What if Suzanna began to question her own motives; what if she should
lose belief in her own spiritual integrity; learn in time to look in on
herself with a spirit of morbid analysis instead of living out her
natural qualities beautifully and spontaneously!

All these truths stirred her again as she looked at her child.

While Suzanna didn't move from her place, she wanted to stay at some
distance that she might look her soul's full at her mother--_her
mother_!

At length she spoke: "Mother--I want to be your little girl again. Will
you take me back?"

Would she take her back? Mrs. Procter's arms opened wide. Into them
Suzanna flew.

Mrs. Reynolds regarded the cold poached egg, the second one spoiled that
morning. Furtively she wiped the tears from her eyes. At last she
cleared her voice and spoke:

"I