Mary Louise and Josie OGorman | Page 6

wonder at the well-kept nails and dimpled knuckles.
"No horny-handed daughter of toil, at least," was her mental note. She then instinctively glanced at the woman's feet.
"Too well shod for the serge suit," was her verdict, "high arched triple A with French heels, about a five, which is small for a person of her height. She must be at least five feet, ten inches."
This inventory took Josie the fraction of a second, so quick was she to see and pigeon-hole her observations in her well-ordered brain.
The children had evidently been crying. The girl's eyes and nose were red and the boy at intervals gave a dry sob as though he had been through a storm of weeping and could with difficulty stop. They clung to each other as they would had they been drowning. The woman pushed them into the room. The children's clothes were the worse for wear, and untidy. Their faces were dirty and showed signs of grimy little knuckles having been dug into streaming eyes. The eyes of both children were blue, as blue as cornflowers, and their hair very light, the boy's curling in tight rings but the girl's straight and bobbed.
"I want to see the manager," said the woman in a well-modulated voice.
"Dr. Weston will be here in a few minutes," said Mary Louise. "Won't you sit down?"
The young woman sank into a chair. She paid no attention to the children, but Josie found them a seat on a bench by the window. The little girl lifted the boy to the bench and put her arm around his shoulders, drawing him close to her sisterly bosom.
"Quite warm today," said Josie to the woman.
Mary Louise could with difficulty keep from giggling. It was so foreign to Josie's character to discuss the weather.
"Think so?" answered the woman shortly.
"Not so warm as it was yesterday, but still a little unseasonable," persisted Josie. "I find a suit quite warm, but then, what is one to wear?"
Mary Louise listened in amazement. Josie talking weather and clothes! She had reduced the problem of dress to a science and having done so dismissed the matter from her mind. As for the weather, she had frequently declared that all weather was good if one just accepted it.
"Clothes are getting a little cheaper than they were last spring," she chattered on, "almost pre-war prices at Temple & Sweet's this week. Charming georgette blouses for a mere song and shoes at a great bargain if one wears a narrow last."
The woman was plainly interested.
"Temple & Sweet's?" she murmured, and her glance instinctively fell on her own well-turned arch and narrow toe.
Suddenly the little boy's sobs got the better of him and he wept convulsively. His sister hugged him more closely and with the hem of her skirt wiped his eyes. She shook her own tow head and her blue eyes snapped dangerously as the woman said roughly: "Stop your bawling!"
"Peter, dear, please!" she whispered, but Peter could not stop. Mary Louise went over and sat on the bench by the children.
"You mustn't cry, my boy," she said gently. "Whatever troubles you I am sure will come out right. Look out of the window at that robin. Isn't he busy? Do you know what he is doing? He is building his nest. There is his wife. She is going to help him. What a good little wife she is! She thinks it is better to help because her husband is always stopping and singing. There he goes now! A cunning little teasing song the robin sings. I love to hear him in the spring. He always sounds so gay and cheery. Do you know what will happen when they get the nest built?"
"Wha-at?" sobbed the boy. The tears had ceased and the sobs were almost under control.
"The little wife bird will lay four beautiful eggs. They will be a greenish blue, the blue that people call robin's egg blue. And then she will stay patiently on her nest for many days keeping those eggs nice and warm, only leaving her nest for something to eat and a drink of water and when she is off, her husband, if he can stop singing long enough, will keep the eggs warm for her, and by and by the pretty blue shells will crack and inside them will be the most ridiculous-looking little creatures you ever saw, all mouth at first, with no feathers at all, and those mouths will always be stretched wide open like this," and Mary Louise stretched her pretty mouth as wide as nature would allow. The boy laughed and his sister smiled contentedly.
Mary Louise resumed, in her pleasant voice:
"Then such a business! Mother and Father Robin will be working every minute of daylight to try and fill those hungry mouths. Poor little worms will be