. . .against her mouth, heard her mother's hearty, pleasant laugh ring out. And for an instant she thought that her own little play was real; that she was, indeed, the little girl of other years lying in her cot and listening to the grown folks in the other room.

Then her own laughter turned, as laughter will, to hot, choking tears of fear and trepidation that burned her throat.

The talk outside ran on pleasantly, naturally; just such an hour as Wardwell and one or two others of the boarders had often spent with her mother. Wardwell loved to tell stories, to run on about himself, about his lack of money—it was a tradition of the house, founded probably on his own authority, that he had but three socks, one of which he washed every night—about the scrapes which he was constantly getting into and getting out of. He never laughed at the end of one of his own tales, but always before beginning one he would break out with a short, provoking laugh . . . Read More