Mrs. Schmitz was waiting in a deserted corner of the porch far from the noisy company around the punch bowl; and when Sydney came forward with Ida, she stepped toward them, reaching both hands to the wondering girl, and asking in a tremulous voice,

“Girl! Girl! Where learned you that song?”

“I think my mother must have taught it to me when I was very little; I can’t remember when I did not sing it.”

“Your mutter—do you remember her?”

Ida looked around startled, and again at Mrs. Schmitz. “Oh, sometimes I think I can; a tall, lovely woman, not large like you. Then it fades,—that picture, and I see nothing but darkness and—” She shivered.

“Ant water?” Mrs. Schmitz volunteered excitedly.

“Yes. How—do you know?”

“How do I know? Because you are mine leetle Ida! Because mine father write that song for you, and taught it to you. And it never was printed, ant no one sings it but mine leetle Ida!” She smoothed back the girl’s hair, and studied her face anxiously.

“That’s true. No one sings it but me.”

“Ant I was that tall woman; in America I grow fat.”

“Ida! Ida,” the girl mused, giving the name its German sound. “They used to call me so; I can dimly remember.”

With one sweep of her loving arms Mrs. Schmitz took the girl to her heart, so long hungry for her child. Ida, who had drifted from the orphan asylum to one home after another, had found at last the mother for whom she had so long prayed.

It was the daughter who first noticed that others had approached. The discovery of her mother had changed her whole future. In a moment, almost in a breath, the shadowy hand of family relationship had reached across the sea, bringing dim memories of her native land and speech; had given her a family where before she had been a lonely waif. Yet, for this is the way of youth, the present moment seemed the all important one to her.

“Mutterchen,” she whispered, and knew not that she said “mother dear,” in German; “they are looking at us.”

The mother, older and wiser, looked both ways on life, to the past and to the future. Not only had her heart massed the longing and sadness of dreary years and flung it to the winds in this instant of glad discovery; she was also planning for the future. No wonder she had no eyes for people, time, or place; for anything but this miracle of happiness; her child was found!

But once recalled, her innate courtesy prompted the kind course. With a long embrace that held the pent tenderness of years, she released Ida, and they went quietly in. After the other guests had gone Mrs. Schmitz told her story to the rejoicing Wrights, Max, and Billy and his mother.

She wished to take Ida home with her that very night, but was surprised with opposition.

“I think I should stay where I am till the end of the semester. That is only a week or so; and it will inconvenience Mrs. Patton for me to go away now.”

“But what will she do in summer time? Seedney tells me summer times you work for money to buy your clothes.”

“Yes, but that is all planned for. When school closes they are going to the country; they have made their arrangements.”

“So? Well, then I’ll hire a good servant to take your place.”

Ida hesitated. It was a great temptation; yet her duty was clear, as her mother could see by her decision. “A stranger would be a lot of bother for such a short time. The little children would be afraid of her, and the big ones wouldn’t mind her, and Mrs. Patton couldn’t leave the baby with her, and—Oh, don’t you see? I want to be with you, but I must stay where I am till vacation begins.”

For an instant no one spoke. Mrs. Schmitz did not conceal her disappointment, yet she did a strange thing. She rose from her chair and drew Ida up beside her, gazing into her eyes, smoothing back her hair, noting every feature of her small, expressive face. She saw the loveliness there and her mother’s pride rejoiced in it; but she was looking deeper, was singing in her heart a song of joy.

“Mine child, for those words I love you more. Already you are like your father ant grandfather. Also like mine goot mutter, so much to think of others. You stay, yes; but I shall hire the Japanese boy to do much work for you, scrub, clean, ant do things mit the dishrag.”

She joked a little to keep back the tears, and saw Ida go away with Sydney, while she started home with Max.

Both were silent till they had left the car and were walking toward the nursery, when Max said, with a cadence of regret in his voice, “I’ll never find another home like yours in the City of Green Hills.”

She whirled, blocking his way. “You are not going. You ant Seedney are still mine boys.”

“We’ll be in the way.”

“Never! You are mine mascot. Seedney iss mine strong right hand. I got plenty rooms. Don’t you see?” Under the arc light he saw her face beaming with the joy of planning. “That’s what for I save mine best room mit the porch; that iss now Ida’s. Ant we will have a quartette, four parts.”

Inside the house they discussed that matter and many others, excitedly. In imagination they refurnished the house, disputing whether pink or blue would be nicest for Ida. Max and his new sister went through the university, Max deciding his profession; and they were hotly debating the question whether Ida’s voice could be developed into a high dramatic soprano, or would only be a mezzo soprano, when Sydney came, Sydney, the practical.

“It’s half past two,” he warned. “Max, if you don’t behave, Ida will lose her mother as soon as she’s found her. You gink! can’t you see our mother-on-the-side is worn to a frazzle?”

Mrs. Schmitz laughed and started toward the hall. “Goot Seedney!” she called back. “Ida finds already two fine brothers; one, Max, to make her fly mit the clouds; ant Seedney, to hold her to the earth, from which all our life must come. She iss a lucky girl.”

“The nursery is all right for the night,” embarrassed Sydney said by way of changing the subject. “The temperature has dropped; I turned on the heat for the orchids.”

She patted his arm. “Goot boy! Goot night, two goot boys,” she said cheerily in another tone, and left them.

At school the silent prejudice against Max had shown itself in looks, in subtle ways impossible to define, and in the fact that he was omitted from some of the class affairs. Yet as the weeks passed he could feel it decline.

Billy was the best of friends. He told Max that all the “good ones of the bunch” liked him from the day he went back to school and marched boldly up to Walter in the presence of his special friends and said, “Mr. Buckman, when one does wrong the only way he can atone is to make good for it if possible, and live it down. I paid for the food I took, as you know; and I intend to stay in Fifth Avenue High till I graduate. Some day I may get even with you.”

The words were not a menace. Max’s face and tone were kind, greatly puzzling Walter. When he least expected it and in the most astonishing way Walter was to acknowledge that Max was more than even.

It was perhaps two weeks after the musicale that Max and Sydney were at Billy’s, planning and rehearsing some of the details of Billy’s play. It was well on the way toward presentation. He had worked hard, beginning in early autumn, and revising again and again, till at last he had won high commendation from his teacher of English, who had spurred him to write it.

A committee from each high school in the city would hear it, and on their joint decision rested the award of the prize. If Billy won it would be for the honor of his school as well as for himself.

Late in the afternoon Billy’s small cousin, Madge Price—little Miss Snow, her brother Hec called her because of her white hair—ran in, gesticulating wildly, scarcely able to speak coherently.

“Quick! Come! It’s Dottie Buckman! She’s all swallowed up! She’ll be dead in a minute!”

Before she had finished, Billy swung her to his arm and ran out with her, questioning as he went. Max and Sydney followed. Around the corner they hurried to where the city, in the process of street grading, had made a huge cut.

Instantly they knew. All the children in the neighborhood played there at “making caves.” Many little hands had worked far into the sand bank, easy to dig yet damp and hard packed enough to stay in place. But at last the root-netted crust above became too thin to support its weight, and had fallen, imprisoning the little child in its fatal clutch.

“Oh, oh! She’ll be all dead!” Madge cried piteously as Billy put her down.

Heedless of her, the boys frantically tore at the earth with their hands. Billy grasped the situation, as Max could see, while he snatched at the earth with inadequate fingers.

“Run, Madge! Tell mother, everybody! Tell them to bring shovels!” Billy commanded, and sent out ringing calls for help in every direction.

There were no men near at that hour, and only women came running with every sort of an implement from a shovel to kitchen spoons; but they worked as frantically as the boys.

“Some one get a basin of water,” Max commanded.

“Who’s going to stop to drink water?” Billy asked sarcastically.

No one halted to answer, least of all Max. He had a fierce sort of strength that outmatched sturdy Sydney and even big, strong Billy. He drove his shovel deeper, piled it higher, and plied it faster than any one else. The perspiration poured from him, yet he shivered with dread of what they should presently see.

“Out of my way!” he cried to a hysterical woman who ran in front of him, and did no work herself. “Take her away, Billy!” he demanded in a voice that would be obeyed, the long, rapid sweep of his arms never halting, never slacking, indeed, moving more swiftly with each dip of the shovel. He did not see or know that the woman slipped back at his first fierce word.

It seemed hours, in reality it was less than minutes, when a fragment of a little skirt was uncovered.

“Here she is!” Max shouted wildly; and the boys worked with more fury, till presently three pairs of hands drew the limp little figure to the light, apparently dead.

“Here she is!” Max shouted wildly