SARA haunted this forbidden paradise with impassioned pertinacity. It seemed to Alice that she never looked out of the window without seeing Sara wistfully hanging over the fence or sitting forlorn on the Williams's steps. Always she was peeping in through the front door to get a glimpse of the land beyond, of the forbidden country.
Alice was standing by the window one day. She saw the Williams children disappear in their house. She saw Tillie stand in the doorway, beckoning to Sara. Sara glanced furtively over her shoulder toward home and vanished inside the door.
As Alice walked toward her neighbors her step and bearing would have told any child with sense that here was an outraged parent. Even worse things awaited her. As Alice was passing some shrubbery Sara whisked out of the house again, looked toward home with that furtive look shocking to behold on so young a countenance, and by the time Alice arrived she was sitting in her accustomed pose, a picture of patient if mournful resignation. No one could have told she had moved. The only incriminating evidence was a lump in her cheek and crumbs on her lips.
"What have you got in your mouth, dear?" asked Alice with treacherous sweetness.
"A piece of cookie," answered Sara. She didn't take her head from her hands. She stared ahead of her stolidly.
"Where did you get it?"
