yet come, but like an unseen presence Alice knew it was there, waiting.
At last it came, and Alice drew a sigh of relief at the long-drawn-out, expected cry of anguish and wrath, and eased her nerves.
"Has that rascal been hurting Sara again?" Tom wishes to know.
"Oh, it's nothing," Alice murmured, wishing they wouldn't investigate further. She knew so well what would happen; she knew also that Tom's mother could not let her grandchild shriek in vain.
"I'm going to find out," Tom insisted.
"They'll be all over it in a minute," Alice murmured.
"What's that got to do with it," Tom asked indignantly. "Of course she'll get over it. If that young ruffian broke her head open with an ax, she'd get over it—if she didn't die."
"I don't see why you always assume every thing's Robert's fault," Alice argued.
"I don't understand why you have no instinct to protect Sara," said Tom.
They faced each other, hostility smoldering between them.
Tom started rapidly for the hammock, Alice after him more sure than ever of her husband's inability to bring up children. By the time they got there the quarrel was over. Sara and Robert were a picture of brotherly and sisterly love, they sat side by side in the hammock, looking at a picture book. No parent would have disturbed them at this moment. Their grandmother asked, however:
"What hurt my dearie?" Tears filled Sara's beautiful eyes, filled but did not overflow.
"He," she cried, shaking her finger in the direction
