A shrill whistle from the Mills echoed and reechoed through the valley. Beryl turned her head suddenly and laid her cheek against the palm of her mother's hand.
"Mother, I saw a lot of Tom Granger when I was in Paris."
Mother Moira started ever so slightly, with the barest twitching of the hand Beryl's cheek touched.
"He was very nice to me. Mother, are he and—and Robin—awfully good friends?"
"What's in your heart, my girl?"
"Mom, couldn't Robin marry almost anybody? She's such a dear and she's so rich and she's travelled around so much."
"Why, bless the heart of her, she's nothing but a child!"
"Mother!" Beryl's voice rang impatiently. "We'll just never grow up in your eyes! Why, Robin's twenty. Well, I should think anyone'd like Tom Granger."
"Oh, my dear!" And Mother Moira, reading the girl's heart with her wise mother-eyes, gave a tiny sigh. Must the shadow of a heartache touch the splendid friendship between these two, Beryl and Robin?
The thought lingered with her while she watched the girls come hand in hand out to the orchard from the drive where Robin had left her roadster. Beryl had only been home for three days and Robin came out to the farm at every opportunity.