ught! Mother had sat there as a little girl
. . . a little girl like her. Mother who was now grown-up and _finished_,
knowing everything, never changing, never making any mistakes. Why, how
_could_ she have been a little girl! And such a short time ago that Aunt
Hetty remembered her sitting there, right there, maybe come in from
walking across that very meadow, and down those very rocks. _What had
she been thinking about, that other little girl who had been Mother?_
"Why" . . . Elly stopped eating, stopped breathing for a moment. "Why, she
herself would stop being a little girl, and would grow up and be a
Mother!" She had always known that, of course, but she had never _felt_
it till that moment. It made her feel very sober; more than sober,
rather holy. Yes, that was the word,--holy,--like the hymn. Perhaps some
day another little girl would sit there, and be just as surprised to
know that _her_ mother had been really and truly a little girl too, and
would feel queer and shy at the idea, and all the time her mother had
been only _Elly_. But would she _be_ Elly any more, when she was grown
up? What would have happened to Elly? And after that little girl,
another; and one before Mother; and back as far as you could see, and
forwards as far as you could see. It was like a procession, all half in
the dark, marching forward, one after another, little girls, mothers,
mothers and little girls, and then more . . . what for . . . oh, _what
for?_

She was a little scared. She wished she could get right up and go _home_
to Mother. But the procession wouldn't stop . . . wouldn't stop. . . .

Aunt Hetty hung up the last bag. "There," she said, "that's all we can
do here today. Elly, you'd better run along home. The sun'll be down
behind the mountain _now_ before you get there."

Elly snatched at the voice, at the words, at Aunt Hetty's wrinkled,
shaking old hand. She jumped up from the trunk. Something in her face
made Aunt Hetty say, "Well, you look as though you'd most dropped to
sleep there in the sun. It does make a person feel lazy this first warm
March sun. I declare this morning I didn't want to go to work
house-cleaning. I wanted to go and spend the day with the hens, singing
over that little dozy ca-a-a-a they do, in the sun, and stretch one leg
and one wing till they most broke off, and ruffle up all my feathers
and let 'em settle back very slow, and then just _set_."

They had started downstairs before Aunt Hetty had