But the Earth was silent, listening. For the City, the beautiful, green-robed City lying in her glorious night jewels, knew what was happening too. And when the Lady lifted Littlegirl, to carry her away, it was as if something had happened which had touched the life of the City herself. She listened, as the Earth was listening, and the soft crooning which men thought was the roar of her traffic was really her song about what she heard. For the story of Littlegirl spread and echoed, and other children’s stories like hers were in the song, and it was one of the times when the heart of the City was stirred to a great, new measure. At last the City understood the homelessness of children, and their labour, and their suffering, and the waste of them; and she brooded above them like a mother.... And suddenly she knew herself, that she _was_ the mother of all little children, and that she must care for them like a mother _if she was to keep herself alive_. And if they were to grow up to be her Family, and not just her pretend family, with nobody looking out for anybody else--as no true family would do. “Is it well?” asked the Shadow, softly, of the Earth. “It is well,” said the Earth, in deep content. “Don’t you hear the human voices beginning to sing with her? Don’t you see the other Cities watching? Oh, it is well indeed.” “I’ll go and mention it to the Uttermost Spaces,” said the Shadow. And, in time, so he did. XX THREE TO MAKE READY Red mosquito-netting, preferably from peach baskets, was best for bottles of pink water. You soaked the netting for a time depending in length on the shade of pink you desired--light, deep, or plain. A very little red ink produced a beautiful red water, likewise of a superior tint. Violet ink, diluted, remained true to type. Cold coffee gave the browns and yellows. Green tissue paper dissolved into somewhat dull emerald. Pure blue and orange, however, had been almost impossible to obtain save by recourse to our paint boxes, too choice to be used in this fashion, or to a chance artificial flower on an accessible hat--of which we were not at all too choice, but whose utilization might be followed, not to say attended, by consequences. That August afternoon we were at work on a grand scale. At the Rodmans, who lived on the top of the hill overlooking the town and the peaceful westward-lying valley of the river, we had chosen to set up a great Soda Fountain, the like of which had never been. “It’s the kind of a fountain,” Margaret Amelia Rodman explained, “that knights used to drink at. That kind.” We classified it instantly.