HERE was silence in the wide kitchen, a bristling silence into which the clock ticked and the fire crackled like deprecating mediators. Opposite the stove was a table with three places set for breakfast on the white oilcloth. One chair was empty; a crumpled napkin lay beside the half-full glass of milk. At the other places sat two women, one plump and flushed above her white shirt-waist, the other sharpened and gray, in a dull wrapper. Their eyes met hostilely. The younger woman spoke first:

"It's just as Sarah said. A charity boy

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"Brat' she always said," interrupted the older, calmly.

"Can't be depended upon for anything but lying and stealing. I hope you're satisfied now, Abby Price!"

Abby took a sip of her coffee before she answered, deliberatively, "No, I'm not satisfied; not yet."

"You mean you're going to keep him?"

"Why not?"

intent on the manoeuvers of several industrious hens. The grimness on Abby's face settled into fierce determination, and with that she turned at the sound of Jennie's feet.

Jennie stood in the doorway.

"I'm taking Sarah's advice," she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, "if you're going to insist on keeping him."

"I am." Abby glanced out of the window.

"I won't help support a hired woman's lying boy."

'Any one 'd think you never lied in your life, Jennie," said Abby. "He's only a little fellow."

"If he was yours it wouldn't be such a disgrace to keep him."

"S'pose I said I thought you were disgracing the family, going around sewing as you do."

Jennie stopped sniffling. "Disgrace?" she exclaimed, indignantly. "I make dresses folks are proud to wear."

"And you like it, don't you? Making dresses, I mean. Don't you? And Sarah likes being a respected bookkeeper. You're no disgrace."

Jennie drew her plump figure up resentfully. "We go out to work. You don't have to

"No; I just stay here, keeping the homestead together. It's just as if I was a wife! You and Sarah keep me, don't you? Suppose I'm sick of it, and want something different, like this boy?"

"I s'pose it's the maternal instinct, like Sarah said, stronger in you because you've always stayed at home."

Abby swung on her heel. "Sarah may be a good business woman," she said, over her shoulder, "but she's an awful fool, too.'

"She was right about the boy," cried Jennie. "He took that piece of gold ribbon for Mrs. Blake's dress right off my box, and said he hadn't touched it. And you never said a thing to him."

"Sarah and I have reasoned with you "

"Don't waste any more breath. You'll have to look out for the note on the place. But I can take care of Franklin and me."

Jennie flushed. "I don't want to quarrel." She hesitated, pursing her lips. "Good-by, Abby.”

"Good-by." Abby scoured at the porridge-dish. "Good-by." She gave a vigorous rub and then paused. The sidedoor slammed shut. Outside the window the boy still watched the hens.

"Franklin!" called Abby.

The boy gave a little jump and looked furtively around. Abby frowned. "He thinks it's Jennie," she said. Then she called more sharply, "Frank-lin!"

He slipped off the stump and came slowly in as far as the kitchen door.

"Will you bring me some wood, Frank-lin," said Abby, briskly, without turning, "and a pail of water?"

She smiled at the readiness of his disappearance. First she heard the pumphandle creaking; then small feet brushed along the path to the outer shed, returned, and an armful of wood clattered into the box. That was repeated twice, then came silence. Abby walked to the door. Franklin stood by the wood-box, his dark eyes, with their curious fringe. of pale lashes, very wide in his small, white face. They met hers with a furtive alertness, and his thin little body stiffened, tense for flight. Abby regarded him gravely.

"Come here," she said.

Reluctantly he came. Abby touched his white head gently and smiled at him. He started, almost as if she had struck him.

"We'll say no more about it, Franklin," she said. "It's time you were off for school. Finish your milk and

Abby felt his eyes follow her as she moved about the kitchen. She said nothing until he took his cap from the nail and walked to the outer kitchen door. Then at her "Franklin" he turned sharply.

"Come straight home to-night, won't you? I'll-I'll be waiting for you." "Will she be here?"

"No; no one but us."

He gave a little sigh. "Yes, ma'am,” he answered; "I'll be right back."

Abby watched him down the path to the gate. "He understood," she said. "I'm sure he understood."

When he was out of sight Abby turned to her empty house. Sunlight filled the kitchen; the rooms beyond were dark and still. She stood with her head bent as if she listened. Countless days she had spent alone in the old house, while her sisters were at work; but to-day was different. The house waited, expectant; she felt it, and a flush crept up into her cheeks.

"You're mine now!" she cried suddenly. "I can do what I please. Mine!" she repeated, loudly. And nothing contradicted.

She walked into the sitting-room and flung open the shutters. She set the front door ajar, catching it with the padded brick which had served there for years. The fresh wind rushed through, shaking the everlastings that stood on the mantel-shelf. Abby seized the vase and with fierce delight carried it to the kitchen, where she thrust its dry contents into the stove.

"There!" she said, as they blazed up. "I wish Sarah could see you now.

As she replaced the vase she wheeled upon the room. "Lord! How many times have I set you to rights! All my life I've spent doing things I had to do again the next day. Nothing ever to show for it. Nothing! And now- I declare, I feel like a convict that's escaped in a dark night and don't know where he is. Me with a little boy! A little boy!"

She looked once more about the sitting-room-at the large arm-chair which had stood unused in the corner since the end of the silent years when her father

had watched her from it in moody helplessness, at the sheet - iron cover which Sarah had economically had fitted into the fire-place. She had much to do before Franklin came back from school.

Early in the afternoon she began to watch the path, a little shamefaced, for she knew school did not close until four, and Franklin had a long walk after that. She fed the chickens, built the fire for supper, and made hot apple-sauce and biscuit; then she saw him lagging up the path. She wanted to run to meet him, to brush off the ridiculously large cap he wore, and carry him into the house. But she only watched him come, her breath tightening in her throat. There, in some mysterious fashion, approached her chance; she did not know how. Three weeks earlier she had heard that Franklin Peck had no place to live that winter, as his mother was off in service-no one knew just where-and the farmer who had kept him was moving to the city. She had acted blindly in response to the chaotic desire within her, obdurate against the remonstrances of her sisters, unmoved by their wrath, even by their departing, and Franklin had come to live with her. Sarah had left at once; now Jennie had gone. The barest poverty faced her; she had a scanty annuity which they had eked out, and the little farm the three had struggled to hold. But the impulse that had driven her had no after-flavor of regret. For years her life had lain as dead as a rock at ebb-tide—a long ebb-tide. Now far off the water turned, and within her faint stirrings of her spirit answered.

Franklin stood in the doorway. "Come in, Franklin," Abby said. "I was afraid you'd be too late for supper." "Ain't your clock fast?" He looked up at it suspiciously. "Why, I guess not. Did you come right home?"

"Yes'm."

Evading her eyes, he stood on tiptoe to hang his cap against the door. Abby gazed in doubt at the back of his white head. There came into her mind a comment of the farmer who had housed Franklin: "He don't know how to tell the truth." Sarah had heard it at the store and brought it home in tri

umph. Abby turned away. Franklin shouldn't see that she suspected-at least not until she had decided what to do."

"Supper's ready when you are," she said, clearing her throat. "I've set the table in the other room."

Franklin washed his face and brushed his hair in silence. Abby handed him a plate of biscuit. "Lay these on the table," she said. Then she followed him softly. In front of the fireplace was a little square table covered with a white cloth, a pitcher of yellow dahlias in the center, and a chair at each end. Franklin set the plate down and stood by the table, his head level with the flowers, like a larger, paler dahlia. Abby's hands gripped her bowl of apple-sauce. She didn't know what she had expected, but suddenly she felt overcome with embarrassment. The red shawl she had thrown over the hollows of the armchair leered at her. Franklin was looking at that, at the opened windows, at the sticks in the fireplace which she had pried free of its iron cover.

"There's just two places," he said.
"Just two folks," answered Abby.
"Us?" asked the boy.

Abby nodded. Franklin moved closer to her.

"Did you want me to light the fire?" he whispered, eagerly.

Abby nodded again.

He was back with matches in an instant. Kneeling on the hearth, he puffed at the little sticks until he blew them into flames; then he looked up at Abby, his face aglow. She had taken her seat at the table.

"It's a good fire," she said. He climbed into his chair, his eyes on the fire, where they stayed most of the time through supper. Once he turned them. on Abby.

"It's a good chimney, I guess," he ventured.

"Yes, I think so," answered Abby.
"But a fire has to be lit right, too?"
"Yes, that makes a difference."

After supper Abby piled the dishes in a pan, and they pulled the table back to a corner, Franklin lifting one side. Then Abby pushed the arm-chair to one edge of the hearth and settled herself into it with a slight glance of defiance

toward the empty wall above the mantel. Franklin sat in a low rocker-one Jennie had used as a sewing-chair-at the other side of the hearth. He rocked

back as far as the rockers would swing, then forward with a jerk. Suddenly he stopped.

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'Are they coming back?" he asked. "Them others?"

Abby started. She had just been wondering if the arm-chair wasn't large enough to hold two comfortably.

"I don't suppose so, she said. "They've gone. We're here alone." "I think two is better," announced Franklin as he began rocking again. Abby repeated his words to herself as she watched him. He rocked less vigorously, and his eyelids drooped in long and longer winks. She rose with a little sigh.

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'Bedtime," she said. "I've moved you into the front chamber. You can take your lamp and call me when you are in bed."

"Well"-he slid off his chair-"the fire is most out."

She did not move after he had gone. The room held a new, friendly warmth." "He is going to like it," thought Abby, listening for his voice. Would she kiss him if she tucked him in? She never had, and he had been there over a week now. But this was their first real night. Jennie's words floated back, chilling her pleasant thoughts. Had he lied to her again? She heard a soft step behind her. Franklin set his lamp down on the table and shuffled slowly toward the door, one hand gathering up the folds of the faded night-shirt which engulfed him.

"I brought it back," he said. "Can you see to my fire all right?"

"Yes, Franklin." Abby hesitated. He was so little, so sleepy! "You haven't anything to tell me?"

"No'm." He blinked drowsily, and at Abby's "Good night" disappeared into the dark room beyond.

Abby's cheeks burned as she went about locking the house for the night. At least she had not spoiled the end of the day. And perhaps the boy had been afraid, or perhaps he had not understood her; the teacher might have kept him after school. He might never lie

again. She would wait. With that decision her discomfort left, and she went peacefully to bed.

During the Indian summer days that followed, the two settled into a pleasant routine of existence. Franklin learned to feed the chickens; he filled the woodbox, pumped the water, picked the fall apples. His cheeks grew round, and he came whistling up the hill at the end of his school-day. Abby spent her days waiting for that whistle. She waitedbusily, to be sure-for fall farm work is heavy-but her real day began when the small figure came into sight between the apple-trees. Sometimes he brought home his school-books and read to Abby after supper or puzzled over a problem in arithmetic. The arm-chair often held two very comfortably.

The winter shut in early. One morning they woke to find the first snow flurries, driven along by a sharp wind. Franklin insisted that he must go to school; and so Abby, in spite of his demurring, wrapped him in a plaid cape of hers and sent him off. That afternoon she waited uneasily for his return. It darkened early, and no small boy appeared. She tried to sit down with a basket of mending, but even Franklin's stockings had no interest. Wrapping a shawl about her shoulders, she hurried down the path.

The road lay white and deserted. As she turned reluctantly, something black under a bush caught her attention. Frightened, she bent down. It was soft -a coat? She shook it out her cape, with little pockets of snow in its folds. It had lain there some time, then.

She climbed the slope, shielding her face against the wind. Perhaps in the warm kitchen she could decide better what to do. She built her fire up well, set the tea-kettle over, and then stared grimly at the clock; almost half-past five! She would walk up toward the school.

Well bundled this time in coat and cap, she started down the path. As she reached the road she stopped, her heart pounding. Was that something dark against the snow under the bushes again, moving this time? It emerged slowly, straightened, and came toward her. "Franklin!" she cried.