"My baby!"

"_Moth-er!_"

Cheek caressed cheek.

"She's six, isn't she, my dear?" asked the plain, elderly one.

"Oh, she's seven." A soft hand stroked the yellow hair.

"As much as that? Really?"

The inference was not lost upon Gwendolyn. She tightened her embrace.

And turning her head on her mother's breast, looked frank resentment.

The visitors were not watching her. They were exchanging glances--and smiles, faint and uneasy. Slowly now they began to move toward the hall door, which stood open. Beside it, waiting with an impressive air, was Miss Royle.

"I think we must go, Louise."

"Oh, we must,"--quickly. "Dear me! I'd almost forgot! We've promised to lunch with one or two people down-town."

"I wish you were lunching here," said Gwendolyn's mother. She freed herself gently from the clinging arms and followed the two. "Miss Royle, will you take Gwendolyn?"

As the governess promptly advanced, with a half-bow, and a set smile that was like a grimace, Gwendolyn raised a face tense with earnestness.

Until half an hour before, her whole concern had been for herself. But now! To fail to grow up, to have her long-cherished hopes come short of fulfillment--that was _one_ thing. To know that her mother and father had real and serious troubles of their own, that was another!

"Oh, moth-er! Don't _you_ go!"

"Mother must tell the ladies good-by."

"What touching affection!" It was the elder of the visiting pair.

Miss Royle assented with a simper.

"Will you come back?" urged Gwendolyn, dropping her voice. "Oh, I want to see you"--darting a look sidewise--"all by myself."

There was a wheel and a flutter at the door--another silent exchange of comment, question and exclamation, all mingled eloquently. Then Louise swept back.

"What a bright child!" she enthused. "Does she speak French?"

"She is acquiring two tongues at present," answered Gwendolyn's mother proudly, "--French and German."

"_Splendid!_" It was the elder woman. "I think every little girl should have those. And later on, I suppose, Greek and Latin?"

"I've thought of Spanish and Italian."

"_Eventually_," informed Miss Royle, with a conscious, sinuous shift from foot to foot, "Gwendolyn will have _seven_ tongues at her command."

"How _chic!_" Once more the gloved hand was extended--to pat the pink-satin hair-bow.

Gwendolyn accepted the pat stolidly. Her eyes were fixed on her mother's face.

Now, the elder of the strangers drew closer. "I wonder," she began, addressing her hostess with almost a coy air, "if we could induce _you_ to take lunch with us down-town. Wouldn't that be jolly, Louise?"--turning.

"_Awfully_ jolly!"

"_Do_ come!"

"Oh, _do_!"

"Moth-er!"

Gwendolyn's mother looked down. A sudden color was mounting to her cheeks. Her eyes shone.

"We-e-ell," she said, with rising inflection.

It was acceptance.

Gwendolyn stepped back the pink muslin in a nervous grasp at either side. "Oh, _won't_ you stay?" she half-whispered.

"Mother'll see you at dinnertime, darling. Tell Jane, Miss Royle."

A bow.

Louise led the way quickly, followed by the elderly lady. Gwendolyn's mother came last. A bronze gate slid between the three and Gwendolyn, watching them go. The cage lowered noiselessly, with a last glimpse of upturned faces and waving hands.

Gwendolyn, lips pouting, crossed toward the school-room door. The door was slightly ajar. She gave it a smart pull.

A kneeling figure rose from behind it. It was Jane, who greeted her with a nervous, and somewhat apprehensive grin.

"I was waitin' to jump out at Miss Royle and give her a scare when she'd come through," she explained.

Gwendolyn said nothing.

CHAPTER IV

It was a morning abounding in unexpected good fortune. For one thing, Miss Royle was indisposed--to an extent that was fully convincing--and was lying down, brows swathed by a towel, in her own room; for another, the bursting of a hot-water pipe on the same floor as the nursery required the prompt attention of a man in a greasy cap and Johnnie Blake overalls, who, as he hammered and soldered and coupled lengths of piping with his wrench, discussed various grown-up topics in a loud voice with Jane, thus levying on _her_ attention. Miss Royle's temporary incapacity set aside the program of study usual to each forenoon; and Jane's suddenly aroused interest in plumbing made the canceling of that day's riding-lesson seem advisable. It was Thomas who telephoned the postponement. And Gwendolyn found herself granted some little time to herself.

But she was not playing any of the games she loved--the absorbing pretend-games with which she occupied herself on just such rare occasions. Her own pleasure, her own disappointment, too,--these were entirely put aside in a concern touching weightier matters. Slippers upheld by a hassock, and slender pink-frocked figure bent across the edge of the school-room table, she had each elbow firmly planted on a page of the wide-open, dictionary.

At all times the volume was beguiling--this in spite of the fact that the square of black-board always carried along its top, in glaring chalk, the irritating reminder: _Use Your Dictionary!_ There was diversion in turning the leaves at random (blissfully ignoring the while any white list that might be inscribed down the whole of the board) to chance upon big, strange words.

But the word she was now poring over was a small one. "B-double-e," she spelled; "Bee: a so-cial hon-ey-gath-er-ing in-sect."

She pondered the definition with wrinkled forehead and worried eye.

"Social"--the word seemed vaguely linked with that other word, "Society", which she had so fortunately overheard. But what of the remainder of that visitor's never-to-be-forgotten declaration of scorn?