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“Won’t you come in and sit down?” she said, smiling. “We are trying our new wheels.”

And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the ankles.

“It’s an awful sight, ain’t it?” she breathed, “those little shiny things; I don’t see how you ever git on them.”

“I don’t,” said Miss Hopkins. “The only way I shall ever learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, Mrs. Winslow?”

“No, ma’am,” said Mrs. Winslow; “but he knows how. When he was a boy nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, sure. I always expected he’d be brought home in pieces. So I don’t think he’d have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she’s most riding alone!”

“She could always do everything better than I,” cried Lorania, with ungrudging admiration. “See how she jumps off! Now I can’t jump off any more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further leg over first, and cut a kind of figure eight with your legs, and turn your wheel the way you don’t want to go–all at once. While I’m trying to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon.”

Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins would use her linament that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the burglars at the bank; he was bruised “terrible.”

“That must have been an awful time to you,” said Lorania, looking with more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands.

“Yes, ma’am,” was all she said.

“I’ve often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cozy you looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be home evenings.”

“Yes, ma’am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril’s a good boy; he wa’n’t nine when his father died; and he’s been like a man helping me. There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he’d set right there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he’d git me when he got to earning money; and he’s got me every last thing, foolish and all, that he said. There’s that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril’s got a beautiful disposition, too, jest like his pa’s, and he’s a handy man about the house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting with me awhile.”

She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. Lorania looked at her pityingly.

“Why, surely,” said she.

“Mothers have kinder selfish feelings,” said Mrs. Winslow, moistening her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the piazza. “It’s so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may want something more. But it’s kinder hard giving all your little comforts up at once when you’ve had him right with you so long, and could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he coughed. It’s all right, all right, but it’s kinder hard. And beautiful young ladies that have had everything all their lives might–might not understand that a homespun old mother isn’t wanting to force herself on them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it.”