un had tanned a ruddy ring. Her hair had been parted
in the center and twined in adorable curls about the young head.

The transformation drew an untactful ejaculation from Horace, and he
stared intently at the sensitive face. Flea's gray eyes, after the first
hasty glance at him, sought Flukey.

"Flukey ain't so awful sick, be he?" she questioned fearfully.

Ann passed an arm tenderly around her. "Yes, child, he is very ill. My
brother and I want to speak to you about him."

"But he ain't goin' dead?"

Her tone brought Horace nearer. In spite of Flea's somberness, the
bouyancy of her youth obliterated the memory of every other girl he
knew. He was confounded by the thought that a short time before she had
stood as a ragged boy before him. She had been transformed into
womanhood by Ann's clothing.

Flea bent over Flukey and hid her face. Even when Horace had discovered
the pig in the salad, her embarrassment had been of small moment to
this. After an instant, she lifted her eyes from her muttering brother
and allowed them to fall upon her Prince. There was an unmistakable
smile upon his lips; nevertheless, a great fear possessed her. If Flukey
were allowed to stay there because of his illness, she at least would be
taken away; for she had never heard of a theft being entirely
overlooked, and she believed that her imprisonment must be the penalty.

She stooped a little and lovingly touched Flukey's shoulder, looking
first at Ann, then at Horace. Straightening up, she burst out:

"Mister, if ye're goin' to have me pinched for stealin', do it quick
before my brother knows about it, and--I'd ruther go to prison in
Fluke's pants--please!"

Still the master of the house did not speak. Flea was filled with
suspicion, and thought she divined the cause of his quietness and smile.
He was ridiculing her dress, perhaps making sport of the way her curls
were arranged. She thrust one hand upward and tumbled the mass of hair
into disorder.

"Yer woman put these togs onto me," she said, "and I feel like an old
guy--dressed up this way!"

Anger forced tears into her eyes, and her two small brown hands clenched
under the hanging lace at her wrists. Her words and the spontaneous
action deepened the expression on the face of the silent man, and she
cried out again:

"Ye needn't be making fun of me, Mister! I can't help how I look."

But a feverish exclamation from the sick boy so increased her anxiety
for him that her own t