The rectory was reached before Cyril Rose's house, and Cyril yielded gratefully to Sally Patterson's proposition that she take the little girl with her, give her dinner, see that she was washed and brushed and freed from possible contamination from the Thomases, who were not a cleanly lot, and later brought home in the rector's carriage. However, little Lucy stayed all night at the rectory. She had a bath; her lovely, misty hair was brushed; she was fed and petted; and finally Sally Patterson telephoned for permission to keep her overnight. By that time poor Martha had reached home and was busily brushing her best dress. After dinner, little Lucy, very happy and quite restored, sat in Sally Patterson's lap on the veranda, while Jim hovered near. His innocent boy-love made him feel as if he had wings. But his wings only bore him to failure, before an earlier and mightier force of love than his young heart could yet compass for even such a darling as little Lucy. He sat on the veranda step and gazed eagerly and rapturously at little Lucy on his mother's lap, and the desire to have her away from other loves came over him. He saw the fireflies dancing in swarms on the lawn, and a favorite sport of the children of the village occurred to him. “Say, little Lucy,” said Jim. Little Lucy looked up with big, dark eyes under her mist of hair, as she nestled against Sally Patterson's shoulder. “Say, let's chase fireflies, little Lucy.” “Do you want to chase fireflies with Jim, darling?” asked Sally. Little Lucy nestled closer. “I would rather stay with you,” said she in her meek flute of a voice, and she gazed up at Sally with the look which she might have given the mother she had lost. Sally kissed her and laughed. Then she reached down a fond hand and patted her boy's head. “Never mind, Jim,” said Sally. “Mothers have to come first.” NOBLESSE MARGARET LEE encountered in her late middle age the rather singular strait of being entirely alone in the world. She was unmarried, and as far as relatives were concerned, she had none except those connected with her by ties not of blood, but by marriage. Margaret had not married when her flesh had been comparative; later, when it had become superlative, she had no opportunities to marry. Life would have been hard enough for Margaret under any circumstances, but it was especially hard, living, as she did, with her father's stepdaughter and that daughter's husband.