Hertha's mouth drooped, and yet her heart glowed at her boy's thoughtfulness. From his entrance at the basement door until he left she knew he would look after her and see that she suffered nothing from his presence in her white home. "Tell me first if they're all well?" she asked. "Yes'm, they're doing nicely. Mammy's been ailing some this winter, Ellen says, but she's a heap better now." "What's been the matter?" Hertha questioned sharply. "Oh, just ailing," Tom said vaguely. "There ain't anything rightly the matter." "But she's better now?" "Oh, yes, and Ellen's had a good year at school and the hens are laying. Mammy told about the eggs they had for Sunday breakfast." "Truly?" Hertha said. "What Sunday?" "Last Sunday," Tom answered and drew a letter from Ellen out of his pocket. As he read her all the homely news of the school and cabin her eyes filled with tears though she did not let them fall; only when he was done she asked for the letter and received it. "And now," she demanded, turning on Tom with a show of severity, "what are you doing in New York? Don't you know you ought to be in school?" "Yes'm," he answered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and smiling ingratiatingly. "What's happened?" Hertha's voice changed from one of severity to one of curiosity. "Well," Tom made answer, "it weren't such a great show there, so I up and left." "I didn't suppose you'd do such a thing! What was the matter anyway?" "They was always rushing a feller. They didn't give yer any time to think." "Tom!" Hertha broke into laughter, such peals of laughter that the cook, back in the kitchen, listened and smiled as she wrung out her dishcloth, glad that her favorite in the house, who never made a mite of trouble, was having a good time. "It weren't a bad place," Tom went on, indulgent to the school, not wishing to do it an injustice, "there's some as likes to jump about like a chicken with its head cut off, but I like a chance to think. You'd have found it right pretty, Hertha--a river not so big as ours but full of lights at sunset. The trees were fine, too, with bigger leaves than we have, and when winter come it was white with snow." "Oh, I know about that," Hertha interrupted. "I was out in the first snowstorm this winter, and on a sled, too. Did you go coasting, Tom?" "No, ma'am!" His negative was emphatic. It precluded the possibility that even, for a moment, he had indulged in such a pastime. And after the spoken word he shook his head some seconds in further denial.