s always the dreadful noise and confusion
of New York, with only my one doll--black Dinah--a rag-baby. I
thought," she interrupted herself wistfully, "I'd send Dinah to you
when I got back to New York. Would you like her?"

"Like her--like her! My--my--" But he swallowed his words. "Go on!" He
commanded again.

"Afterwards came London and then India. Such education as I had, I got
from governesses. I didn't have very much as girls go in my--in my
class. I didn't understand that then, any more than I understand why I
wasn't allowed to go to school or to play with other girls. There was a
time when I rebelled frightfully at that. I can tell definitely just
when it began. We were passing a convent in the Bronx, and it was
recess time. The sisters in their starched caps were sewing over by the
fence, and the girls were playing--a ring game, 'Go in and out the
window'--I can hear it now. I crowded my little face against the
pickets to watch, and two little girls who weren't in the game passed
close to me. The nearest one--I 'm sure I'd know her now if I saw her
grown up. She was of about my own age, very dark, with the silkiest
black hair and the longest black eyelashes that I ever saw. She had a
dimple at one corner of her mouth. She wore on her arm a little
bracelet with a gold heart dangling from it. I wasn't allowed any
jewelry; and it came into my mind that I'd like a gold bracelet like
that, before it came that I'd like such a friend for my very ownest and
dearest. The other girl, a red-haired minx who walked with her arm
about _my_ girl's waist--how jealous I was of her! I watched until Aunt
Paula dragged me away. As I went, I shouted over my shoulder, 'Hello,
little girl!' The little dark girl saw me, and shouted back, 'Hello!'
Dear little thing. I hope she's grown up safe and very happy! She'll
never know what she meant to me!"

Her lips quivered again. Looking up into her face, Blake wondered for
an instant at the sudden softness of her eyes. Then he realized that
they were slowly filling with tears. He reached again to seize her
hands.

"Oh, no, no--wait!" she said, weakly. After a pause, she resumed:

"That got up rebellion in me. All children have such periods, I've
heard. I'm docile enough now. But before I was through with this one,
Aunt Paula had to make my destiny clear to me--long before she meant to
do so. And I grew to be resigned, and then glad, because it was a
greater thing."

Here a rapid, ine