But on the whole it was a happy and beautiful morning for Julie, and even for Miss Fogg it held a faint return to life. Julie tried again that night to tell Tim what Miss Fogg meant to her. It was a mystery that she could not quite explain to herself. She was constantly drawn back to interpret it to him. “It’s like she was my child,” she said. “I’m giving her life. She’s mine. Everybody’s forgotten her. Life’s forgot her, an’ gone on by; but now I’ve come along, an’ brought some of it back to her. It’s like all the sufferings of the world had got a-hold of my heart, an I _had_ to go down into hell to drag folks out. It isn’t just that poor old soul. She stands for all the rest: all of ’em that’s suffering. It’s something bigger almost than I can feel, but it’s got a-hold of me, an’ it’ll _never_ let me go. Oh, my honey! my love!” she burst out, holding the lapels of his coat and staring up into his face. “You know what it is! It’s our love gone beyond itself--beyond just us, an’ out into all the world.” For a moment her eyes blazed up into his and her face was a white flame, then he put his hand over the wide gaze and turned her face against his breast pressing it there with both hands. “Little honey, don’t!” he cried. “You’re mine. Don’t slip away to all the world.” It made Julie happy when anyone in the house commented upon Miss Fogg’s improved condition. She was pleased when Mrs. Watkins said, “Well, you certainly are the miracle-worker! Who ever would have thought you could get that old soul to look so spruced up an’ reasonable. Why, she looks almost like real folks now.” Mrs. Watkins was rocking back and forth in a chair which creaked regularly as it struck a certain board in the floor, the while she fanned herself and the baby in her arms with a frayed palm-leaf fan, which she used also to emphasize her remarks. “She _is_ better, isn’t she?” Julie said, eager for more praise of her creation. “She is that,” Mrs. Watkins assented cordially. “But it’s you that’s done it.” She pointed the fan at Julie. “You mark what I say, it’s you that’s put life into the old graveyard-deserter. She hasn’t got any real life of her own: she’s just what you’ve made of her. You’ve put life into her like a kid blowing up a toy balloon; but if you was to quit blowing at her she’d go flat again, or maybe bust.” “I know,” Julie admitted uneasily. “That’s the reason I wish her niece would come to her.” “Niece?” Mrs. Watkins swept a fly off the sleeping baby’s face and paused, staring at Julie. “Niece?” she snorted. “I’m mighty doubtful about any niece, myself.” “Why, she’s got a photograph on her mantel of a girl that she says is her niece,” Julie cried.