"I told her I had known Ivory ever since we were school children. She
was rather strange and indifferent at first, and then she seemed to take
a fancy to me."

"That's queer!" said Patty, smiling fondly and giving Waitstill's hair
the hasty brush of a kiss.

"She told me she had had a girl baby, born two or three years after
Ivory, and that she had always thought it died when it was a few weeks
old. Then suddenly she came closer to me--

"Oh! Waity, weren't you terrified?"

"No, not in the least. Neither would you have been if you had been
there. She put her arms round me and all at once I understood that the
poor thing mistook me just for a moment for her own daughter come back
to life. It was a sudden fancy and I don't think it lasted, but I didn't
know how to deal with it, or contradict it, so I simply tried to soothe
her and let her ease her heart by talking to me. She said when I left
her: 'Where is your house? I hope it is near! Do come again and sit with
me. Strength flows into my weakness when you hold my hand!' I somehow
feel, Patty, that she needs a woman friend even more than a doctor. And
now, what am I to do? How can I forsake her; and yet here is this new
difficulty with father?"

"I shouldn't forsake her; go there when you can, but be more careful
about it. You told father that you didn't regret what you had done, and
that when he ordered you to do unreasonable things, you should disobey
him. After all, you are not a black slave. Father will never think of
that particular thing again, perhaps, any more than he ever alluded to
my driving to Saco with Mrs. Day after you had told him it was necessary
for one of us to go there occasionally. He knows that if he is too hard
on us, Dr. Perry or Uncle Bart would take him in hand. They would have
done it long ago if we had ever given any one even a hint of what we
have to endure. You will be all right, because you only want to do kind,
neighborly things. I am the one that will always have to suffer, because
I can't prove that it's a Christian duty to deceive father and steal off
to a dance or a frolic. Yet I might as well be a nun in a convent for
all the fun I get! I want a white book-muslin dress; I want a pair of
thin shoes with buckles; I want a white hat with a wreath of yellow
roses; I want a volume of Byron's poems; and oh! nobody knows--nobody
but the Lord could understand--how I want a string of gold beads."

"Patty, Patty! To hear you chatter any