Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/246

 Honey in horror, and Caroline's lower lip pushed out scornfully.

The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a therapeutic measure.

"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would think that these children were your friends, and I was the stranger, from the way you all talk. What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you quarreling about, Rob?"

He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.

"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we look at things differently. And—and looking at things in the same way rather makes people friends, you know."

He glanced down at the children, close about him now, and then over appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance.

"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly.

"Babe? She's—her name's Margaret—at school now. She's growing awfully pretty."