A short, stout old woman was setting the table.  She had iron gray hair.  Her face was a broad wreath of wrinkles, surrounding bespectacled black eyes and a thin mouth that never quite concealed a very white and handsome set of false teeth.

“See!  Liz!  See!” cried little Patience, pattering up to the old woman with the tugging balloon.

“Ain’t that grand!” said Lizzie.  “Where’d you git the money, Lydia?  Baby’s milk’s in the tin cup on the kitchen table.  Your father’s home.  You’d better fry the steak.  He complains so about it when I do it.”

Lydia left the baby clinging to Lizzie’s skirts and went on into the kitchen.  Her father was washing his hands at the sink.

“Hello, Dad!” she said.  The child had a peculiar thread of richness in her voice when she spoke to little Patience and it was apparent again as she greeted the man at the sink.  He turned toward her.

“Well, young woman, it’s about time you got home,” he said.  “Baby all right?”

Lydia nodded and turned toward the litter of dishes and paper parcels on the kitchen table.  Amos Dudley at this time was about forty years old,—­a thin man of medium weight, his brown hair already gray at the temples.  Lydia evidently got from him the blue of her eyes and the white of her teeth.  He began to peel off a pair of brown overalls.

“What’s for supper?” he asked.

“Round steak,” said Lydia.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t let Liz touch it.”

“I won’t,” said the child, piling up dishes deftly.  “I’m going to give baby her cup of milk, and then I’ll fix it in my patent way.”

Amos nodded.  “You’re a natural cook, like your mother.”  He paused, one leg of his overalls off, disclosing his shiny black trousers.  Lydia carried the cup of milk toward the dining-room.  From where he sat he could see her kneel before little Patience, and hold the cup, while the baby drank thirstily.  Little motes of the sunset light danced on the two curly golden heads.  He looked from the children toward the dusty kitchen table.

“What a hell of a mess Liz does keep going,” he muttered.  “Patience would break her heart, if she knew.  Oh!  Patience, Patience!—­”

Lydia came back with the empty cup.  “Now for the steak,” she exclaimed.  “Gosh, what a fire—­”

She attacked the greasy stove with enthusiasm and in a short time a savory smell of steak filled the house.  Amos went into the dining-room and sat in a rocking chair with little Patience and the balloon in his lap.  Old Lizzie hummed as she finished setting the table and Lydia whistled as she seasoned the potatoes Lizzie had set to frying.

“Where’d she get the balloon?” asked Amos as Lydia brought in the platter of meat.

“Margery gave it to her,” answered the child.  “Supper’s ready.”

“Got it at the circus, I suppose.  I wish I could ‘a’ let you go, Lydia, but at a dollar and a half a day, I swan I—­”