THAT Annabel knew her own mind, there was no question; and that Annabel also knew her mother’s mind, there was no question in Annabel’s mind.... She was not perhaps altogether responsible for this feeling about her mother. It would have taken a more astute person than Annabel to discover that all that went on underneath Eleanor More’s quiet look was not open for the world to read.

Annabel loved her mother and trusted her; and to the best of her ability she took care of her—though she knew, with a kind of fierce pity, that her mother could never be of her own generation, and that she could not know the real nature of the plans and visions that swept before that generation.

“I am a suffragist!” she announced one day in swift assertion.

And Eleanor More looked up with a quiet smile. “I am one, too,” she replied.

Annabel stared at her a minute. “I didn’t know you were—a suffragist!”

Then she looked at her with slow suspicion.

“You know what a suffragist is, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Eleanor went on with her sewing.

“Oh—I Well.... am going to march—in the procession!” She was watching her mother’s face.

“When is the procession?” There was a little upward twist to Eleanor’s lip that might have been amusement at her position, or dismay. “When did you say the procession is?”

“Next week—Monday.... You going to march?”

“Yes.” Eleanor threaded her needle and drew in the end and twisted it into a skilful knot. “Yes—I think I shall march.” It was quite casual, and she inspected her work.

“Well—!” Annabel turned it in her mind. “You’d better get a short skirt—if you are going to march. You haven’t a thing that clears the mud!”

“Very well.”

So Annabel had out her mother’s wardrobe and turned and planned, and had a woman in to shorten a skirt for her. And all the days before the parade, she watched her solicitously, and waited on her—as if she were an invalid.

“I can’t bear to have you march in that old parade!” she exclaimed almost viciously.

“I don’t mind it.”

“I don’t suppose you do.... But I mind it for you!” She rumpled her hair, with a quick gesture, like a boy’s. “I’ve no idea what they’ll do. They may throw sticks at you, or—eggs!”

“Well, if it doesn’t hurt you, it won’t hurt me,” said Eleanor placidly.

Annabel stared at her. Then she smiled. She shook her head.

“It isn’t the same thing,” she declared. “You little know—how much it isn’t the same thing!”

And, after all, the parade was not so terrible. They assembled quietly, and with importance, at the city hall and marched through the principal streets, and had speeches; and Eleanor and Annabel marched side by side.

And Annabel was so busy guarding her mother from unpleasant experiences, and looking after her comfort, and providing places for her to sit down when the procession stopped a minute, that she quite forgot to have experiences of her own or to be thrilled or frightened at her temerity, or any of the exciting things that her imagination had cast beforehand.

“I call it a rather tame performance!” she declared at dinner that night, after it was over, “—a rather tame performance!”

And Richard, who had stood on the sidewalk and watched his wife and daughter march past, with a little amused smile, nodded assent.

“You made a mistake taking your mother, perhaps?” he suggested mildly.

Annabel cast a quick glance at her mother’s unperturbed face, and her look lightened.

“Mother’s a sport!” she declared. “I didn’t take her! She took herself!” She was silent a minute.... Then—slowly: “I’m not so sure I shouldn’t have backed out the last minute, you know—if mother hadn’t been so set on going!” She looked at her meditatively. “You can’t tell what mother will do!” she declared. “She does the queerest things—queer for her, I mean!”

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