Mabin, who had recovered the use of her eyes, felt rather envious. The quick give and take of light talk like this was so different from the solemn conversations carried on at home, where her father laid down the law and everybody else agreed with him, that she felt this levity, while pleasant and amusing, to be something which would have caused the good folk at home to look askance. “And how have you been, child, since that unhappy day when I saw you last?” And Mrs. Dale came to the next chair, and piled sugar on the strawberries. “Oh, I’ve been getting on all right, but it is tiresome not to be able to walk without those things. And it has made me in everybody’s way,” sighed Mabin. “How is that?” “Papa could have let the house to go abroad, as he wanted to, when the accident happened. Only I couldn’t well be moved then. And now that I could go, he has lost the house he had heard of at Geneva, and one which he could have now is too small for us. So that I feel I am in the way again.” “Do you mean,” asked Mrs. Dale quite eagerly, “that they could go if only they could dispose of you?” “Yes. There is one room short.” Little Mrs. Dale sprang up, and the color in her cheeks grew pinker. “Do you think,” she asked, after a moment’s pause, “that your parents would allow you to stay with me? If you would come?” she finished with a plaintive note of entreaty on the last words. “Oh, I am sure they would, and I am sure I would!” cried Mabin, with undisguised delight. And then quite suddenly the face of the black-robed lady grew ashy gray, and she sank down into her chair trembling from head to foot. “No. I--I mustn’t ask you,” she said hoarsely. And there was a silence, during which both her young hearers cast down their eyes, feeling that they dared not look at her. It was Mabin who spoke first. Putting her hand between the two white hands of Mrs. Dale, she said gently: “Is it because you are lonely you want me to come?” She did venture to look up then, startled by the shiver which convulsed Mrs. Dale as she spoke. And in the blue eyes she saw a look of terror which she never forgot. “Lonely! Oh, child, you will never know how lonely!” burst from her pale lips. “Then I will come,” said Mabin. “I should like to come.” There was another silence. Mrs. Dale had evidently to put strong constraint upon herself to check an outburst of emotional gratitude. Rudolph, moved himself by the little scene, was looking out of the window. The lady in black presently spoke again, very gravely: “I don’t think you will be very much bored, dear, and you will be doing a great kindness to a fellow-creature. And yet--I hardly like--I don’t feel that I ought----” “But I feel that I must and shall,” said Mabin brightly. “You don’t know how beautiful it would be for me to feel that at last, for a little while, I shouldn’t be in the way!”