Mrs. Tyler faced the picture. She had loved the child and mothered her. A lump rose in her throat. “Sarah,” she said, laying her hand on her friend’s arm, “I’ve got to talk with you about Hazel. I’m worried, I’m worried.” “Hazel, why hasn’t she been well?” “No, all this autumn she has seemed so delicate. She takes cold easily and she doesn’t throw it off. I fear the long winter for her.” “I wish you hadn’t left Jamaica Plains.” “I had to. I mustn’t spend the little money left me. I must work and save. Hazel will need more every year. But I don’t want to save just for doctor’s bills. Sometimes, Sarah, she frightens me. She looks as her father looked----” Mrs. Tyler stopped. She could not yet speak of her husband’s long illness and of the blank left by his death. “I’m not saying this just to complain,” she went on after a moment. “I’ve a wild idea that I can’t keep out of my head.” “What is it, Lucy?” “It’s to send Hazel for the winter to her grandmother Tyler’s.” “To Alabama? Oh, Lucy, how could you! It’s so far away.” “I know, but it’s a home in a beautiful place where she could be out-of-doors all day long. My husband used to tell me about the good times he had as a boy among the pines with plenty of space around him. He, like Hazel, would have hated to have been shut up in three rooms.” “But it’s in the South,” Mrs. Perkins said earnestly. “We don’t know the South, Lucy, but I fear it with its jim-crow cars and its lynchings.” “Don’t,” gasped Mrs. Tyler. Then, after a little, she laughed. “There are thousands and tens of thousands of colored children who grow up there in safety. Hazel will be under good care. Her grandmother will have more time to give to her than I.” “Has she written for Hazel?” “Not recently, but I know she would welcome her. She is alone just now, but she is always mothering some child. She will love Hazel, for Hazel is like her father in many ways. Perhaps living with her grandmother, she will learn to be still more like him. I cannot bear the thought of having her leave me, but I know that if she goes she will be in good hands.” A tremendous noise issued from the room across the hall, and Hazel popped out her head to call, “He’s Shere Khan, a tiger of the jungle, and I’m Mowgli.” “Come here and let me eat you, Little Frog,” called out the tiger, and made a hideous sound between a snarl and roar. “It’s Sunday, Henry. Don’t make so much noise,” said his wife. “Don’t make so much noise, Shere Khan,” said Mowgli, and fearlessly shut herself up with the tiger in the jungle. Through the door the two women heard the little girl cough. “How could you get the child South?” Mrs. Perkins asked. [Illustration: Granny]