The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

It was a few minutes before seven when the maid showed Jean into the Allen living-room. A little girl rose from a hassock and stood looking at her quietly. Then she came forward and held out her hand.

"My mamma's not home yet, but I'm Puck."

Jean took the mite of a hand in hers. "And I am Mrs. Herrick."

"I know. I'm going to entertain you. Won't you sit down? " The brown of Gregory's eyes was softened to hazel in Puck's, but the spirit in them was his. "That's the nicest chair. My daddy likes it best. " The tone was a childish treble of Margaret's, but the decision with which she pointed out that particular chair was the same with which Gregory in the end had always won over hers or Mary's suggestions. A lump rose in Jean's throat.

"Stop it," she whispered fiercely to herself. "You're in it now. You've got to see it through."

Puck had returned to the hassock, where she sat with her brows drawn, looking for a foothold in this, her first social struggle. As one grown woman to another Jean smiled and said:

"I think it's going to snow, don't you?"

Puck's face cleared and she smiled back at Jean, exactly as Gregory smiled, the light touching her eyes and then settling in her lips.

"I shouldn't be s'prised. I told Lady Jane that this morning. " There was a pause, as if she were weighing a sudden decision. "Would you like to see Lady Jane? She's just back from the hospital."

"Indeed I should, if you're sure it won't hurt her."

"I don't believe it will, not for a few moments. I haven't put her to bed yet."

Safe with Lady Jane in her arms, the manner of hostess dropped away. Puck came close to Jean's chair, and turning up the filmy clothes in which Lady Jane was arrayed, pointed to a leg glaringly new and unscratched.

"It was a bad accident and she broke it, but my daddy said it _might_ have killed her. She was lucky, wasn't she? My daddy took her to the hospital and they -- they -- imput -- "

"Amputated?"

"Yes. They -- ampt -- they did that to the old leg and gave her a new one. But I don't let anybody touch her, except me and daddy. He loves Lady Jane too."

"I'm sure he does. " Jean smoothed Lady Jane's lacy skirts with trembling fingers.

"Do you _like_ her? " Puck asked it abruptly after a brief pause in which Jean fought to hold fast her belief that she had come to kill her own fear once and for all.

"I think she is one of the nicest persons I have ever met."

Puck dropped the subject and climbed to the arm of Jean's chair. "Tell us a story," she demanded, "we love stories."

Jean put her arm about the slight body and her own throbbed at the contact.