ive attempts to enliven
her wardrobe were immediately crushed with scathing references to the
fiery locks. And the wardrobe remained of an unwaveringly dull tone.

According to Miss Eliza, Arethusa's red hair was wholly to blame for
her temper, which was of a somewhat quick and lively nature. She
seemed, at times, almost to consider it a deep disgrace to the family
that her niece should be so crowned. Arethusa was the only red-haired
person that had ever been in the whole family connection, so far as
anyone knew; an off-shoot, so to speak. But Miss Asenath dearly loved
its bright color, and she was never tired of running her fingers
through the ruddy masses and of curling and twisting the little shining
tendrils of curls that clustered in the nape of the girl's neck.

Arethusa had the warm white skin that nearly always accompanies red
locks, somewhat freckled, it is true, but not enough so really to
matter; and deep greenish-grey eyes, rimmed all around with the most
unbelievably long lashes. They were real Irish eyes, which excitement
darkened and made to shine like big stars. It naturally followed that
they were dark and starry the greater part of the time, for she was
Arethusa and in an almost constant state of excitement.

And she was quite tall and slender, very unlike the Redfields. They
were all small and compactly built; but Arethusa had got her height
from her father.

* * * * *

Having arrived almost at a state of natural breathing once more,
Arethusa rolled over and spread the Letter out before her. She studied
her father's bold handwriting with shining eyes, and kissed his
signature rapturously.

When she was a baby of about six months or so her father had given her
into Miss Eliza's keeping and started for a foreign trip, "of a few
months," he had said then. But that was nearly eighteen years ago, and
he was still on the other side, with never so much as the most flying
visit to the little daughter in America in all that time. Yet the love
and loyalty of that little daughter had never wavered from the day Miss
Asenath had put his photograph into her tiny hands, and taught her to
call it "Father," and to kiss it through the glass.

This love and loyalty were not founded upon memories, for she had none.
They were given a father created by her own vivid fancy, aided by the
photograph. This was a faded likeness of an unusually handsome man with
waving hair of an