essie, Bessie Bell!"

But the lady at her side looked down at the child as if she were
afraid. Bessie Bell knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid, so she
stopped patting her hands and laughing,--for she didn't know why she
had begun to do it--and she laid her hand again on the lady's hand,
just because she knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid.

But Bessie Bell could not see anything to be afraid of: the band was
playing just as gaily as ever, and the children, and the nurses, and
the babies, and the parasols were as gay as ever.

"Where is your mama?" asked the lady, taking fast hold of the little
hand that patted her hand.

"Everybody has a mama--never mind--"

"But where is your mama?" asked the lady again.

Bessie Bell had begun to wonder and so had forgotten to answer.

"Child, where is your mama?" said the lady again, still holding fast to
Bessie Bell's hand.

"But--I don't know," said Bessie Bell.

Then the lady looked as if she had begun to wonder, too, and she seemed
to be looking away off; away off, but how closely she held Bessie
Bell's hand--closer than Sister Angela, or Sister Theckla, or even
Sister Helen Vincula, or Sister Justina--

Then Bessie Bell began to wonder still more, and to remember, as the
lady held fast to her little fingers. She began to talk her thinking
out loud, and she said: "Yes, there was a window--where everything was
green, and, small, and moving--but Sister Justina said there was not
any window like that in the whole world--"

The lady held Bessie Bell's hand very hard, and she said--softly, as if
she, too, was talking her thinking aloud:

"Yes, there was a window like that in the world, for just outside the
nursery-window there grew a Pride of China Tree, and it filled all the
window with small, green, moving leaves--"

Then Bessie Bell just let the lady draw her up close, and she leaned up
against the lady.

She felt so happy now, for she knew she had found the Wisest Woman in
the world, for this lady knew the things that little girls only could
remember. If she had thought about it she would have told the lady
about the tiny apple-trees with the very, very small apples on them,
and other rows of apple-trees over those, and other rows on top of
those, and on top of all a row of big round red apples.

Then the lady might have said: Yes, there were apple-trees like that in
the world, for all the nursery walls were papered like that, with a row
of big round red