Mrs. Farley was shaken. Who's been talking to Winnie? She pressed her lips quiveringly shut. Her eyeglasses twinkled and shuddered with her heaving breast. Winnie felt herself strong with a love that nothing could resist. Exultant, she gloated inwardly over the knotted hand that trembled in her grasp. "Your parents--I don't know--we won't talk about old people's troubles, Winnie." Mrs. Farley was recovering herself. Perhaps Winnie didn't mean that. "I suppose Papa Farley loves me in his way just as you love me in yours." Winnie would not let her go. "You stand up for him. You're so good to him," she insisted with a kind of worshiping commiseration. "Why shouldn't I be?" Mrs. Farley dared, trying to smile while she frowned, her evasive eyes shifting a little. "Because he don't deserve it! Because he did what he did. Oh, Mamma Farley, I know you don't want me to talk about it, but I can't help it. I love you so. You're so wonderful to me!" Winnie's eyes shone, mercilessly sweet, into the hunted eyes of the elder woman. "I don't know what you mean, Winnie." They looked at each other. Mamma Farley could not look. She picked at the sheet. "You dear! You dear!" Winnie hugged her. She was crying. Again they leaned apart and regarded one another. Mrs. Farley's inflamed, withered eyelids twitched. "Do you think Laurence really loves me? I'm so afraid!" Winnie said suddenly. "Of course, Winnie." "Oh, Mamma Farley, I want to be happy. I couldn't bear it if Laurence----" She buried her face in Mamma Farley's dress. Mrs. Farley stroked her hair. "We're all foolish when we're young, but God is good to us. When we grow old we can have a little peace. But you're young enough--even for the kind of thing you want." Her pale mouth had a shriveled look of bitterness. "Love between men and women--the love you are thinking about--is not much in life, Winnie." "But I couldn't bear not to have--not to have anybody love me." "Look in the mirror. They'll love you." Mrs. Farley's eyes in her wet, wrinkled face were hard with contempt under the seared granuled lids. Winnie, lying back, gloated over the thin white hair, the lined flaccid cheeks, and the eyes that glowed with weeping. Winnie swam in the strength of love like a swimmer sure of himself in trusted waters. She was grateful to the age and ugliness which did not claim her. Mrs. Farley did not want Winnie to gaze at her any more. "Look! Bobby's awake," she said. Winnie was satisfied and ready to be glad of Bobby, too. The child sat up drunkenly. His touseled hair, matted with sweat, lay dark on his brow. His eyelids were pale and swollen with sleep. He rubbed them with his fists. "Children are the surest happiness," Mrs. Farley said. Winnie was oppressed. "I'm so afraid of being sick, Mamma Farley." "You'll soon be well, I hope." Mrs. Farley had an air of resolution and dismissal. She went squinting to the crib. "My, what a sleepy boy!"