She flung herself down in the window-seat and looked toward Main Street with unseeing eyes. A wonderful voice murmured in her ears, speaking a new language. She tried to recall what had been said as she crouched at her mother's feet, her head in her lap, before the fire in Amzi's living-room; but it was like the futile effort to recall an elusive strain of music. She had felt curiously no disparity of years in that interview; it had been like a talk with a newfound sister, or with a girl with whom she had established one of the sudden intimate friendships of school days. This wonderful Lois touched with a warm brilliancy innumerable points and surfaces that flashed and gleamed before Phil's fascinated, eager eyes. She had satisfied her curiosity as to Phil in a dozen direct questions that elicited information without leaving any ground for discussing it. Was Phil well?--and happy? What was Phil most interested in? Had there been money enough for her needs? And always with the implication that if the answers to these questions should not prove satisfactory, it did not greatly matter, as the deficiencies could easily be supplied. They were to see each other, Phil and this enchanting mother--to-morrow; yes, there had been definite agreement upon that. But Lois had seemed as indifferent to days after to-morrow as to days before yesterday. And while this troubled Phil, she had caught so much of her mother's spirit, she had been so responsive to the new amazing language that fell so fascinatingly from her mother's lips, that she accepted the promise of a single to-morrow without misgivings. Sufficient unto the day was the wonder thereof! She drew from her pocket a wristlet of diamonds, which Lois had given her as they parted at Amzi's door. The gems sparkled in the sunny window. It was a trinket of beauty and value, and Phil clasped it upon her wrist and contemplated it with awe and delight. It was worth, she assumed, almost or quite as much as the house in which she lived; and yet her mother had bestowed it upon her with gay apologies for its paltriness--this mother out of a fairy-tale, this girlish mother with the wise, beautiful eyes, and most entrancing of voices. The gate clicked and she glanced down at the yard. Her father was bringing Rose and Nan to the house! They were walking briskly, and advanced to the door laughing. The women looked up, saw Phil, and waved their hands. Her father flung a snowball at the window. Happiness was in the faces of the trio--a happiness that struck Phil with forebodings. She had never in her imaginings thought an hour would come when she would begrudge her father any joy that might come to him; even less had it ever seemed possible that she would look forward with dread to meeting Rose and Nan. She hid her mother's gift and ran down to let them in.