sh to break it, not even the baby. And yet, though
the meaning of all the spoken words had not been clear to Suzanna, her
eager, sensitive little mind seized on pictures which seemed somehow to
fit in; yet pictures in their simplicity so far removed from her
surroundings of luxury that they would seem but vagrant fancies.

Had she attempted to translate them, she would have failed, yet as they
grew momentarily more vivid and meaningful, interpretive words, as vivid
as the pictures themselves, rushed to her lips. She turned to the Eagle
Man.

"Oh, on Saturday night when supper is over and the shades are pulled
down and the lamp is lit in the parlor, and Robert is reading a big book
with pictures in it, and the children, except the two eldest, are all
asleep upstairs and it's raining outside, and you can hear the pitapat,
pitapat of the drops on the window pane, then Miss Massey will be happy.
Before supper Miss Massey'll have felt awful tired and she'll hurry up
things and she'll make her eldest little girl hurry too, but after the
dishes are cleared away, and she's sitting close to Robert, she'll be so
glad she's in out of the rain with her children all in safe too, that
she'll not care a bit about raising her finger for a little man to come
and ask her what she wants. She'll not want to go about in a carriage,
or travel in a big train!"

No one spoke. Only the scene painted so simply grew in the hearts of at
least two there, so that Robert drew his promised wife a little closer
to him and she glanced up in his face with eyes full of color.

Suzanna went on. She had forgotten her audience. She was just telling
out the pictures that had been built into her life; supper tables with
many young faces about; little babies who had stayed just awhile; hasty
words and loving making up; the star-dust of the real every-day life.

"You know," she continued, "that Maizie and I crept downstairs one
Saturday night because I wanted to tell daddy something, and mother was
sitting right close to him, and we heard her say: 'When the children are
safe in bed, and just you and I are here--then I see things clearer--'
And he just looked at her and said, 'Sweetheart!' and his voice was
nicer than even when he says good-night to Maizie and me."

Miss Massey turned her gaze upon Suzanna. "Little girl, little girl,"
she said, "come here--"

So Suzanna went and stood close to Miss Massey, whilst Maizie went after
the marauding baby.

Th