slightly, but not before he
saw a flush mount beneath the superficial coating of freckles, and
marveled at the whiteness of her skin. Hers was not the leathery tan of
the typical farmer's daughter, inured to all weathers, yet her hands,
although small, were toil-worn, and there was an odd incongruity between
her dark eyes and the pale, flaxen hue of that ridiculous wisp of a
braid.

"I didn't do any more for you than I'd do for a dog if I found him lyin'
there."

Her naive sincerity robbed the statement of its uncomplimentary
suggestion, and the young man chuckled, but persisted.

"What is your name? Mine is James--er--Botts."

"Lou Lacey. It was 'L' day, you know, an' there was a teeny bit of lace
on my dress. I ain't ever had any since."

She added the last with unconscious pathos in her tones, but in his
increasing interest and mystification the man who called himself "Botts"
was unaware of it. What on earth could she mean about L day, and if she
were running away why did she appear so serenely unconcerned about the
future as her manner indicated?

He felt that he must draw her out, and he seemed to have hit upon the
right method by giving confidence for confidence; but just how much
could he tell her about himself? James Botts's own face reddened.

"I'm walking to my home in New York," he explained. "But I'm late; I
ought to make it by a certain date, and I don't think I'll be able to,
since my encounter with Terwilliger's bull. Where do you live? I mean,
where are you going? Where is your home?"

"Nowheres," Lou Lacey replied offhandedly, following with her eyes the
graceful swoop of a dragonfly over the tumbling waters of the little
stream.

"Great Scott!" The astounded young man sat up suddenly, with his hand to
his head. "Why, everybody has a home, you know!"

"Not everybody," the girl dissented quietly.

"But--but surely you haven't been walking the roads?"

There was genuine horror in his tones. "Where did you come from this
morning when you found me?"

"From Hess's farm, back up the road a piece," she replied with her usual
unemotional literalness. "I been there a week, but I didn't like it, so
I came away. The welfare workers got me that place when my time was up."

Her time! Good Heavens, could this little country girl with her artless
manner and candid eyes be an ex-convict? Surely she was too young, too
simple. Yet the gates of hideous reformatories had clanged shut behind
younger and mo