“Why, Elly, I am very much complimented, I’m sure,” Marsh hastened to tell her, “to be compared with such a remarkably nice thing as a brook in spring-time.  I didn’t suppose any young lady would ever have such a poetic idea about me.”

“Oh . . .” breathed Elly, relieved, “well . . .”

“Do you suppose you little folks can get yourselves to bed without me?” asked Marise.  “If one of you big children will unbutton Mark in the back, he can manage the rest.  I must set a bread-sponge before I go upstairs.”

They clung to her imploringly.  “But you’ll be upstairs in time to kiss us good-night in our beds,” begged Elly and Mark together.  Paul also visibly hung on his mother’s answer.

Marise looked down into their clear eyes and eager faces, reaching out to her ardently, and she felt her heart melt.  What darlings they were!  What inestimable treasures!  How sweet to be loved like that!

She stooped over them and gathered them all into a great armful, kissing them indiscriminately.  “Yes, of course, I will . . . and give you an extra kiss now!” she cried.

She felt Marsh’s eyes on her, sardonically.

She straightened herself, saying with affectionate roughness, “There, that’s enough.  Scamper along with you.  And don’t run around with bare feet!”

She thought to herself that she supposed this was the sort of thing Marsh meant when he spoke about hot-house enervating concentration.  She had been more stung by that remark of his than she had been willing to acknowledge to Marsh or to herself.

But for the moment, any further reflection on it was cut short by the aspect of Mr. Welles’ face.  He had sunk into a chair near the lamp, with an attitude and an expression of such weariness, that Marise moved quickly to him.  “See here, Mr. Welles,” she said impulsively, “you have something on your mind, and I’ve got the mother-habit so fastened on me that I can’t be discreet and pretend not to notice it.  I want to make you say what the trouble is, and then flu it right, just as I would for one of mine.”

The old man looked up at her gratefully and reaching out one of his wrinkled hands took hers in it.  “It does me good to have you so nice to me,” he said, “but I’m afraid even you can’t fix it right.  I’ve had a rather distressing letter today, and I can’t seem to get it out of my mind.”

“Schwatzkummerer can’t send the gladioli,” conjectured Marsh.

For the first time since he had entered the house, Marise felt a passing dislike for him.  She had often felt him to be hard and ruthless, but she had never seen anything cheap in him, before, she thought.

“What was your letter?” she asked the older man.

“Oh, nothing in the least remarkable, nothing new,” he said heavily.  “I’ve got a cousin whom I haven’t seen since she was a little little girl, though she must be somewhere near my age, now.  She has been a teacher in a school for Negroes, down in Georgia, for years, most of her life.  But I had sort of lost track of her, till I had to send her some little family trinkets that were left after my old aunt died.  Her letter, that I received today, is in answer to that.  And while she was writing, she gave me her news, and told me a good deal about conditions down there.  Pretty bad, I should think it, pretty bad.”