At that, a toddling bundle came towards her, never near enough to be caught, and toddled off again, coming and going busily, with muttered baby soliloquy. He was a comical little figure, clumsily muffled against the cold, with a pointed knit cap drawn well down over his ears. If he ignored her call, she rose and fetched him, shaking his little hand and bidding him not to go again so far from mother. He dragged at his arm, squealing the while she exhorted, and almost tumbled over when she let him loose. Then he resumed his interrupted play. After a time he seemed to tire of it. He came to his mother and, touching the bag at her feet, unintelligibly demanded something. She shook her head. He seemed to repeat his demand. "No, no, Dorastus--mother can't!" she said, fretfully. Then this dot of humanity made himself formidable. Gregory watched in surprise the little imperious face become disquietingly like an angry man's. He hammered with both small fists on his mother's knee, and stamped and loudly sputtered. She caught his arms for a moment and held them quiet; mother and child looked each other in the face, his strange, unbabyish, heavy-browed eyes flaming, hers lit with a low smouldering resentment. He struggled from her grasp, and at last, as his conduct was beginning to attract attention, she stooped, vanquished, and, bruising her fingers on the awkward buckles, undid the bag. Gregory at this point approached and spoke to her by name. She lifted her face, her eyes full of helpless tears. She reddened faintly on recognizing him. She handed the boy a diminutive toy-fiddle from the bag. Pacified, he retired at a little distance and, while his mamma and the gentleman entered into conversation, scraped seriously, the tassel on the tip of his cap bobbing with his funny little _airs de tête_. "How good of you, how good of you--how comforting to me!" she said, her forlorn face softly brightening; "I was getting so tired of taking care of myself! I have never travelled alone, and--and I am so timid--"