elonged to the little
mother who had dreamed the dream first for her girl and then, through
years of work and self-denial, had lived for that dream to come true.

After the arrival of the violin Beryl promptly lost herself in a trance
of rapture that left Robin to her own pursuits. Only once the quite
human thought flashed to her mind that Beryl might be a little bit
interested in what _she_ wanted to do but she put it away as unworthy
for, she told herself, Beryl, destined one day to stand on a pedestal,
could not be expected to bother with such every-day things as planning
"fun" for the Mill children.

So Robin left Beryl with her beloved instrument and went alone to talk
to Mrs. Lynch who was so startled at her unexpected coming that she
kissed her and called her "little Robin" before she realized what she
was doing. That, and the fact that she found Mrs. Lynch working in the
shed where big Danny could not hear them, made it much easier for Robin
to talk and talk she did, so rapidly and so imploringly that Mrs. Moira
had to interject more than once: "Now wait a bit, dearie. What was that
again?"

Robin wanted to know about how many Mill children there were.

"Oh, bless the heart of you, it's no one but the doctor himself can tell
you that! They slip in and out of the world as quiet like. But Mrs.
Whaley says the school's so full that her Tommy can only go
afternoons."

Robin remembered Beryl pointing out a dingy brick building as the
schoolhouse. It had a play-yard enclosed on three sides with a high
board fence, disfigured by much scrawling. It had seemed an ugly spot.
She thought of that now.

"And what do the girls--the girls like me--do?"

"Oh, they mostly work. After work? Well, they help at home and do a bit
of sewing maybe and some have beaux and they walk down to the drug store
and hang around there visiting, though Beryl doesn't. 'Tisn't much of a
life a girl in a place like this has," and Mrs. Moira's sigh was happily
reminiscent of her own girlhood in open clean spaces, "it's old they
grow before their time."

"They don't have much fun, do they?" Robin asked.

Mrs. Lynch looked at her curiously. "Fun? They work so hard that they
haven't the gumption to start the fun. But it's so big the world is,
Miss Robin, that it can't all be rosy. Sure, there has to be some dark
corners."

"Mrs. Lynch, if--if--someone started the fun for the girls--would they
like it?"

"Why, what's on your mind, dearie?