“They’ll do something with us; they always do,” said Laura, composedly.

The children of this world, even as children, are wisest in their generation.  Frank believed they would be God’s children; she could not see exactly what was to come of that, though, practically.  Laura knew that people always did something; something would be sure to be done with them.  She was not frightened; she was even a little curious.

A head came up at the corner of the shed behind them, a pair of shoulders,—­high, square, turned forward; a pair of arms, long thence to the elbows, as they say women’s are who might be good nurses of children; the hands held on to the sides of the steep steps that led up from the bricked yard.  The young woman’s face was thin and strong; two great, clear, hazel eyes looked straight out, like arrow shots; it was a clear, undeviating glance; it never wandered, or searched, or wavered, any more than a sunbeam; it struck full upon whatever was there; it struck through many things that were transparent to their quality.  She had square, white, strong teeth, that set together like the faces of a die; they showed easily when she spoke, but the lips closed over them absolutely and firmly.  Yet they were pleasant lips, and had a smile in them that never went quite out; it lay in all the muscles of the mouth and chin; it lay behind, in the living spirit that had moulded to itself the muscles.

This was Luclarion.

“Your Aunt Oldways and Mrs. Oferr have come.  Hurry in!”

Now Mrs. Oldways was only an uncle’s wife; Mrs. Oferr was their father’s sister.  But Mrs. Oferr was a rich woman who lived in New York, and who came on grand and potent, with a scarf or a pair of shoe-bows for each of the children in her big trunk, and a hundred and one suggestions for their ordering and behavior at her tongue’s end, once a year.  Mrs. Oldways lived up in the country, and was “aunt” to half the neighborhood at home, and turned into an aunt instantly, wherever she went and found children.  If there were no children, perhaps older folks did not call her by the name, but they felt the special human kinship that is of no-blood or law, but is next to motherhood in the spirit.

Mrs. Oferr found the open pantry window, before the children had got in.

“Out there!” she exclaimed, “in the eyes of all the neighbors in the circumstances of the family!  Who does, or don’t look after you?”

“Hearts’-sake!” came up the pleasant tones of Mrs. Oldways from behind, “how can they help it?  There isn’t any other out-doors.  If they were down at Homesworth now, there’d be the lilac garden and the old chestnuts, and the seat under the wall.  Poor little souls!” she added, pitifully, as she lifted them in, and kissed them.  “It’s well they can take any comfort.  Let ’em have all there is.”

Mrs. Oferr drew the blinds, and closed the window.