She stood leaning on the low cart; some strange sympathy drew her to this poor wretch, dwarfed, alone in the world,--some tie of equality, which the odd childish face, nor the quaint air of content about the creature, did not lessen.

Even when Lois shook down the patched skirt of her flannel frock straight, and settled the heaps of corn and tomatoes about her, preparatory for a start, Margret kept her hand on the side of the cart, and walked slowly by it down the road.

Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was.

The flannel skirt she arranged so complacently had been washed until the colours had run madly into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear.

The very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cosy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to the glow of colour, Margret noticed, wondering if it were accidental.