over the lady's soft
yellow hair.

Also on the breast of her black dress was a cross, but not white like
the cross that Sister Helen Vincula wore. No, this cross was shining
very brightly, and it was very golden in the sunlight,--and--somehow,
somehow,--Bessie Bell knew just how that cross felt,--she knew without
feeling it. She did not have to feel it as she had felt the dress.

Bessie Bell looked and thought. She thought this lady looked like a
Sister--and yet there was a difference. She looked also like
Just-A-Lady, and she also looked grand and important enough for a Mama.

Bessie Bell looked and thought, but she could not tell just exactly
what this lady was.

It was best that she should ask, and then she would surely know.

So she asked: "Are you a Lady, ma'am?"

"I hope so, little girl," the lady said.

"I thought, maybe, you were a Sister," said Bessie Bell.

"No," said the lady.

"Like Sister Mary Felice, and Sister Angela, and Sister Helen Vincula,"
said Bessie Bell.

"No," said the lady.

"Are you a Mama, then?" asked Bessie Bell.

The lady looked as if she were going to cry.

But Bessie Bell could see nothing to cry about. The band was still
playing ever so gaily, and all the little children looked so beautiful
and so happy, all playing and running hither and thither on the sawdust
walks, that it was good just to look at them.

But on the instant Bessie Bell remembered how sorrowful it was to cry
when you could not understand things, so she quickly reached out her
little pink hand and laid it on the lady's hand--just because she knew
how sorrowful it felt to feel like crying and not to know.

"You see," said Bessie Bell gently, as she softly patted the lady's
hand, "you see, you do look something like a Sister,--but," said Bessie
Bell, "I believe you do look more like a Mama."

"Little girl," said the lady, "what do you mean?"

And she still looked as if she might cry.

"Yes," said Bessie Bell, for she had begun to think very hard, "Alice
has a mama. Robbie has a mama. Lucy has a mama. Everybody has a
mama. Never mind, Bessie Bell will find a mama--"

"Little girl," said the lady, "why do you say, Bessie Bell--?"

When the lady said that it seemed to Bessie Bell that she heard
something sweet--something away off beyond what the band was playing,
so she just clapped her hands and laughed out loud, and said over and
over as if it were a little song:

"Bessie Bell! Bessie, B