I made a deprecating gesture and smiled; she joined me, but in a laugh so brimming over with merriment and so contagious that very soon all the table had joined but without knowing why. When the Mater had finished laughing and the others with her, Ariston said: "Well, Mater, now that you've finished laughing, perhaps you will tell us what it's all about?" "Indeed, I won't," answered she; and there was almost a wink in her innocent old eye as she turned to me and said: "It is a secret--isn't it?--a secret between us two," and she patted my hand as if I had been her son. I promised her with exaggerated solemnity never to reveal it, and she patted my hand again and added: "I see you'll become one of us--one of the Tyringham Colony; we always come together at every harvest time--as indeed do all the other colonies--only we think our colony is just a little bit nicer than every other." "And so does every other," said Ariston, "think itself better than the rest." "And so all are happy," answered the Mater convincingly. "But have you met your neighbor, Anna of Ann?" I turned to my right, and saw that Lydia was not the only beautiful woman at Tyringham. Anna of Ann was of a different type. Her features were delicate; the eye was not remarkable; indeed, her glance was veiled and almost disappointing; her nose was ordinary; her skin clear but colorless; it was assuredly in her mouth, and perhaps in her low forehead and clustering hair, that her beauty resided; and as she spoke there were little movements of the lips that were bewitching: "No, I have not been haymaking with Ariston's group and so we have not spoken," she said. "But I saw you this morning after breakfast, and"--she added archly--"I stared at you with all the others; we were dreadfully rude! But then, there _was_ some excuse for us, wasn't there?" "Every excuse," I answered reassuringly. "But tell me, what do you do when you are not haymaking?" "What do you mean; work or play?" "What do you work at, and what do you play at?" "My work generally consists in attending at the public store; I sell in the hosiery department at New York." "And what do you play at?" "Sculpture." "She's a great sculptor," volunteered Cleon, nodding at her from the other side of the table. "No, I am not," deprecated Anna; "I am not recognized." I looked at the Mater inquiringly. "By 'recognized,'" said the Mater, "she means the state hasn't recognized her; that is to say, she has to do her work at the store or wherever else she is assigned during the regular three hours a day. When the state recognizes her--as it is sure to do one of these days--she will be allowed to devote all her time to sculpture." "I don't believe the state will ever recognize her," said Ariston; "she is a great deal too good. That Sixth is a fool!"