“You two have no quarrel,” the older woman added mildly.  “You and Warren were rarely companionable.  I used to say to George that you were almost too congenial, too sensitive to each other’s moods.  Warren knew that you idolized him, Rachael, and consequently, when criticism came, when he felt that you of all persons were misjudging him, why, he simply flung up his head like a horse, and bolted!”

“Misjudging?” Rachael said quickly, half turning her head, and bringing her eyes from the far horizon to rest upon Alice’s face.  The children had seen them now, and were running toward them, and Alice did not attempt to answer.  She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders.

A dead horseshoe crab on the sands deflected the course of the racing children, except Derry, who pursued his panting way, and as Rachael sat down on the log, cast himself, radiant and breathless, into her arms.  She caught the child to her heart passionately.  He had always been closer to her than even the splendid first-born because of the giddy little head that was always getting him into troubles, and the reckless little feet that never chose a sensible course.  Derry was always being rescued from deep water, always leaping blindly from high places and saved by the narrowest possible chance, always getting his soft mop of hair inextricably tangled in the steering-gear of Rachael’s car, or his foot hopelessly twisted in the innocent-looking bars of his own bed, always eating mysterious berries, or tasting dangerous medicines, always ready to laugh deeply and deliciously at his own crimes.  Jim assumed a protective attitude toward him, chuckling at his predicaments, advising him, and even gallantly assuming the blame for his worst misdeeds.  Rachael imagined them in boarding-school some day; in college; Jim the student, dragged from his books and window-seat to go to the rescue of the unfortunate but fascinating junior.  Jim said he was going to write books; Derry was going—­her heart contracted whenever he said it—­was going to be a doctor, and Dad would show him what to do!

Ah, how proud Warren might have been of them, she thought, walking home to-day, a sandy hand in each of hers, Derry hopping on one foot, twisting, and leaping; Jim leaning affectionately against her, and holding forth as to the proper method of washing wagons!  What man would not have been proud of this pair, enchanting in faded galatea now, soon to be introduced to linen knickerbockers, busy with their first toiling capitals now, some day to be growling Latin verbs.  They would be interested in the Zoo this winter, and then in skating, and then in football—­Warren loved football.  He had thrown it all away!