herited it all. And there was a
splendid title that went with the estate. In the sharp mind of the
Little Girl nothing was hidden or undiscovered.

"It seems a pity to have it wasted," she mused, wistfully, with her
grave wide eyes on the beautiful green expanses all about her, "just
for a mistake like that,--I mean like _me_--too. You'd think the Head
Angel would be ashamed of himself, wouldn't you? He prob'ly is."

The Shining Mother--it was thus the Little Girl who should have been
a Boy had named her, on account of her sparkling eyes and wonderful
sparkling gowns; everything about the Shining Mother sparkled--the
Shining Mother was almost always away. So was the Ogre. Somewhere
outside--clear outside--of the green expanses there was a gay,
frivolous world where almost always they two stayed.

The Little Girl called her father the Ogre for want of a better name.
She was never quite satisfied with the name, but it had to answer
till she found another. Prob'ly ogres didn't wear an eye-glass in one
of their eyes, or flip off the sweet little daisy heads with cruel
canes, but they were oldish and scare-ish, and of course they
wouldn't have noticed you any, even if you were their Little Girl.
Ogres would have prob'ly wanted a Boy too, and that's the way they'd
have let you see your mistake. So, till she found a better name, the
Little Girl who had made the mistake called her father the Ogre. She
was very proud and fond of the Shining Mother, but she was a little
afraid of the Ogre. After all, one feeling mattered about as much as
the other.

"It doesn't hurt you any to be afraid, when you do it all alone by
yourself," she reasoned, "and it doesn't do you any good to be fond.
It only amuses you," she added, with sad wisdom. As I said, she was
only seven, but she was very old indeed.

So the time went along until the weeks piled up into months. The
summer she was eight, the Little Girl could not stand it any longer.
She decided that something must be done. The Shining Mother and the
Ogre were coming back to the green expanses. She had found that out
at lessons.

"And then they will have it all to go over again--all the
miser'bleness of my not being a Boy," the Little Girl thought, sadly.
"And I don't know whether they can stand it or not, but _I_ can't."

A wave of infinite longing had swept over the shy, sensitive soul of
the Little Girl who should have been a Boy. One of two things must
happen--she must be loved,