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oh yes, that was the thing "Listen, Mark," she said in his ear, stopping her effort to take down his hands, "Mother's learned a new song, a _new_ one, awfully funny And ever so long too, the way you like them" She put her arms about him and began, hearing herself with difficulty through his cries "On yonder hill there stands a damsel, Who she is, I do not know" ("How preposterous we must sound, if Eugenia is listening," she thought to herself, as she sang, "out-yelling each other this way!") "I'll go and court her for her beauty She must answer 'yes' or 'no'" As usual Mark fell helpless before the combination of music and a story His cries diminished in volume She said in his ear, "And then the Lady sings," and she tuned her voice to a young-ladyish, high sweetness and sang, "My father was a Spanish Captain, Went to sea a month ago," Mark made a great effort and choked down his cries to heaving sobs as he tried to listen, "First he kissed me, then he left me; Bade me always answer 'no'" She told the little boy, now looking up at her out of the one eye not covered by his hands, "Then the gentleman says to her," she made her voice loud and hearty and bluff, "Oh, Madam, in your face is beauty, On your lips red roses grow Will you take me for your lover? Madam, answer 'yes' or 'no'" She explained in an aside to Mark, "But her father had told her she must always answer just the one thing, 'no,' so she had to say," she turned up in the mincing, ladylike key again, and sang, "Oh no, John, no, John, no" Mark drew a long quivering breath through parted lips and sat silent, his one eye fixed on his mother, who now sang in the loud, lusty voice, "Oh, Madam, since you are so cruel, And that you do scorn me so, If I may not be your lover, Madam, will you let me go?" And in the high, prim voice, she answered herself, "Oh no, John, no, John, _no!_" A faint smile hovered near Mark's flushed face He leaned towards his mother as she sang, and took down his hands so that he could see her better Marise noted instantly, with a silent exclamation of relief that the red angry mark was quite outside the eye-socket, harmless on the bone at one side Much ado about nothing as usual with the children Why _did_ she get so frightened each time? Another one of Mark's hairbreadth escapes She reached for the cold wet compress and went on, singing loudly and boldly, with a facetious wag of her head, (how tired she was of all this manoeuvering!), "Then I will stay with you forever If you will not be unkind" She applied the cold compress on the hurt spot and put out her hand for the bandage-roll, singing with an ostentatiously humorous accent and thinking with exasperation how all this was delaying her in the thousand things to do in the house, "Madam, I have vowed to love you; Would you have me change my mind?" She wound the bandage around and around the little boy's head, so that it held the compress in place, singing in the high, sweet voice, "Oh no, John, no, John, NO" She went on with a heavy, mock solemnity, in the loud voice, "Oh, hark, I hear the church-bells ringing; Will you come and be my wife?" She pinned the bandage in place at the back of Mark's head, "Or, dear Madam, have you settled To live single all your life?" She gathered the child up to her, his head on her shoulder, his face turned to her, his bare, dusty, wiry little legs wriggling and soiling her white skirt; and sang, rollickingly, "Oh no, John, no, John, NO!" "There, that's all," she said in her natural voice, looking down at Mark She said to herself rebelliously, "I've expended enough personality and energy on this performance to play a Beethoven sonata at a concert," and found she was quoting something Vincent Marsh had said about her life, the day before There was a moment while the joke slowly penetrated to Mark's six-year-old brain And then he laughed out, delightedly, "Oh, Mother, that's a beaut! Sing it again Sing it again! Now I know what's coming, I'll like it such a lots betterer" Marise cried out in indignant protest, "Mark! When I've sat here for ten minutes singing to you, and all the work to do, and the sun getting like red-hot fire every minute" "What must you got to do?" asked Mark, challengingly "Well, the very first thing is to get dinner ready and in the fireless cooker, so we can turn out the oil-stove and cool off this terrible kitchen" Mark looked up at her and smiled He had recently lost a front tooth and this added a quaintness to the splendor of his irresistible smile "You could sing as you get the dinner ready," he said insinuatingly, "and I'll help you" Marise smothered an impulse to shout to the child, "No, no, go away! Go away! I can't have you bothering around I've got to be by myself, or I don't know what will happen!" She thought of Toucle, off in the green and silent woods, in a blessed solitude She thought of Eugenia up in her shaded room, stretched on the chaise-longue in a thin silk room-gown, she thought of Neale and his stern eyes she looked down on the dusty, tanned, tousle-headed little boy, with the bandage around his head, his one eye looking up at her pleadingly, his dirty little hand clutching at the fold of her skirt; and drearily and unwillingly she summoned herself to self-control "All right, Mark, that's true I could sing while I peel the potatoes You could wash them for me That would help" They installed themselves for this work The acrid smell of potato-parings rose in the furnace-like heat of the kitchen, along with the singing voice, asking and answering itself Mark listened with all his might, laughing and wriggling with appreciation When his mother had finished and was putting the potatoes into the boiling water, he said exult