Spring was come. Once more had been wrought the old, old miracle which is ever new, and every tree-crowned hill and nestling valley around Washington was singing the resurrection song. Even the green grass at Margaret's feet and the hyacinths and daffodils as she moved among them seemed to say: "Lo, the winter is past; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."

There was a note of jubilance in it all. Perhaps she was feeling still the influence of the Easter "Allelujahs" of yesterday; perhaps it was that the mellowness of the warm spring air had somehow got into her very soul this morning and swept away the clouds of doubt; or possibly it was only that Margaret was young, and "hope springs eternal." Whatever the cause, the girl looked out upon the world of budding nature around her with an ecstacy which had its overtone of sadness, as all such ecstacies have for natures like hers.... It was a beautiful world! a beautiful world! And it would not be long now.

She knelt upon the grass by her flower beds and buried her face in the sweet fragrance of the hyacinths. Her heart was strangely open this Easter Monday to the influences around her.... Yes, spring had come. The long lonely winter was gone. It had been long—long and lonely! But Judge Kirtley had said the case must come up soon. And when it did, she surely would get him. It seemed almost certain now that the bill would pass, and it must help her in some way. Even Judge Kirtley had said it might have its influence with the court.

Then her thoughts passed to pleasanter things, for Philip was to spend a whole day with her, and she was to take the children to the Easter Monday egg-rolling. Mammy Cely had laid it before Mr. De Jarnette that any child living within going distance and then not allowed to embrace the opportunity was "jes' bodaciously robbed." And indeed it was almost true, for it is a time-honored festival for the children of Washington in which white, black, and brown participate. Mammy Cely had been coloring eggs for days.

That egg-rolling stood out afterwards in Margaret De Jarnette's mind as a day of perfect happiness, save for the knowledge that it must soon end. The delight of the children at the animated scene on the White Lot was unbounded,—that of Mrs. Pennybacker and Bess not far behind it. Even Mr. Harcourt found them before the morning was over, and found them in a characteristic way.

The word was passed quietly around that the President would appear at a certain time on the south portico, and the crowd gathered there. The De Jarnette party happened to be standing near a policeman when a distracted mother rushed up to him.

"Oh, have you seen my little girl? I've lost her! She is only four! Oh, what shall I do!"

"Don't get excited," the policeman said, with a soothing gesture,—"she has been taken over to the east gate."

"Oh, have you found her?"

"No, but I have found you. Somebody else will find her and take her there. So we will get you together."

Hardly had she gone on her way rejoicing before another appeared in like distress.

"Officer! I've lost my little boy! Oh, what shall I do? He had on a blue suit, and he is so timid!"

"Don't get excited," the man said,—"you will find him over at the east entrance," etc., etc.

"You seem to have plenty to do," said Mrs. Pennybacker.

"Oh, yes. They lose their children this way all day long. You let go a child's hand in a crowd like this and he is lost in a minute."

Bess and Margaret each tightened her clutch of a little hand. The crowd was very dense here, for even democratic America loves to see its chief executive. Mrs. Pennybacker had pushed a little ahead of the policeman and was looking at the rounding colonnade when she heard an anxious falsetto voice behind her.

"Oh, have you seen an old lady about eighty-five—with dress and spectacles on? She's got away from me. What shall I do!"

"Don't get excited! You'll find her over at the east entrance," said the policeman in his mechanical formula. He was struggling with the crowd and had not quite caught the description.

Mrs. Pennybacker turned around to find John Harcourt doubled up with laughter.

"You rascal! You'll die of some sort of degeneracy of the heart long before I'm eighty-five!"

For hours the tide set in through the east entrance and swirled and ebbed and flowed. When at last the gates closed upon the throng the De Jarnette party sought the Ellipse, where the children had been promised a lunch.

Harcourt and Bess had fallen behind the others. As they reached the seats beneath the trees he said wheedlingly to Mrs. Pennybacker, "I don't think your little girl has had a very good time to-day. She hasn't had any eggs, or balloon, or anything. Suppose you let me give her a row up the river just to keep her from feeling neglected." Then looking at the basket, "We'll take the portion that falls to us and eat it on the way."

When the two were gone and the children had had their lunch and gone off to play, the two ladies sat and watched them.

"How nicely they play together," remarked Margaret.

"Yes," said Mrs. Pennybacker absently. "Margaret, I am quite disturbed about Rosalie. I don't know what to make of her lately."

"What is the trouble? Has she had any more of those fainting spells?"

"Never since the first one. The nurse thought she was likely to have them at any time, but she has never had another. Queer what caused that."

"Weakness, I suppose. And yet she grows weaker every day."

"Yes, Margaret, somehow she has never seemed the same to me since that day. You know how happy she was when she first came. We were speaking that very morning, I remember, about the look of peace that had come into her face."

"Yes. She had lost that distressed expression. Do you suppose she can feel hurt at my being with her so little these days?"

"No, it isn't that. Sometimes I think she is more troubled after you have been there than at any other time. The nurse even has noticed it. Sometimes I think she has something on her mind still—something she wants to tell."

"Why, she has told me everything. It can't be that."

"I told her about the bill one day, feeling that it would do her good to have something new to think about. She seemed to feel quite a little interested in it. Asks me from time to time how it is getting along, and always if it will give you Philip. She seemed greatly troubled over what Judge Kirtley said."

"A mother's sympathy. I suppose. Poor girl!"

"I guess it must have been that. But it's queer. It was that very day that I heard her moaning to herself—she didn't know I was in the room—and I went to her and said, 'Rosalie, what is it that troubles you?' She looked up at me in such a distressed way and said, 'Oh, I have been a wicked woman! If I could only confess—'"

"Confess!"

"That was what she said. I said, 'Rosalie, child, confess to God. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.' Margaret, I never shall forget the answer she gave me. She said in a sort of despair, 'I have! I have! but He hides His face.'"

"Poor child!" said Margaret. "I will go in to-morrow and see her."

Somehow, Margaret had never found the parting from Philip so hard as it was to-day. "I have such an unaccountable dread of something happening to him," she said. "I have never felt it before."

"I ain't gwineter let nothin' happen to him, Miss Margaret. He jes' as safe with me as he is with you. Ain't I tuk good keer of him all winter?"

The child did look the picture of health and wholesomeness. His cheeks were glowing now from his chase of Louis and his eyes were bright. But at the mention of his going they overflowed.

"Mama, I don't want to go! Why can't I stay wiv you and Louis?"

"Oh, darling!" It broke her heart to send him away.

Mammy Cely was to take Philip to his uncle's office on F Street. When she got there Mr. De Jarnette was just starting to leave the place with some papers.

"Take him on to the B. and O.," he directed. "I have to see a man on North Capitol, but I will be at the station before train time."

"Unker Wichard, let me go wiv you," begged Philip. "I won't bovver you."

Mr. De Jarnette considered. It was but a step from North Capitol to the station, and he wanted to see the man but for a moment.

"All right, Philip." Adding to the old woman, "We will meet you at the B. and O."

"Marse Richard," said Mammy Cely, with unaccountable shrinking from letting the child go out of her keeping, "please, sir, don't take him. I—I done promise Miss Margaret I ain't gwineter let nothin' happen to him. Look lak I can't bear to have him outer my sight. No, sir."

He stopped her with a peremptory gesture. "Go along to the station. I certainly can take care of this child for fifteen minutes. Come, Philip."

While they were waiting in the house on North Capitol Mr. De Jarnette took out the deed he had to deliver and was looking it over. The girl who opened the door had said Mr. Holton would be in in a moment. But the moment lengthened, and Philip catching sight of a child peering in bashfully from the hall, and feeling the attraction of youth for youth, edged out toward him. Then the man of the house came into the parlor from a room back of it, and the sound of voices came to Philip. He was very sure that he was not bothering his Uncle Richard now and he was by nature a friendly child.

"What's the matter wiv your hands?" he asked.

The other child, a little younger, stood bashfully picking at his palm.

"Peelin'," he said laconically. Then, brightening up, "Say! I got a dog."

When Richard De Jarnette and the man stepped into the hall a few moments later Philip was alone. The boy had gone to get the dog. The man looked startled to see a child there, and opened his mouth to speak, but Richard took Philip's hand, said good-night hastily, and what the man called after them was not heeded.

As they went out of the yard the child with the close observation of his age, asked, "Unker Wichard, what do they have a wed paper for?"

Mr. De Jarnette was hurrying with such rapid strides to the station that his nephew could hardly keep up with him. He was intent on making the train, and did not hear, and in his hurrying Philip forgot all about the red paper.