ad forgotten I was standing so near.

"And you know daddy!" she cried--the real girl was shining in her eyes
now--all the coquetry had vanished from her face.

"Yes--we worked together on the piers of the big bridge over the
Delaware; oh, long ago."

"Isn't he the very dearest? He promised to come here today, but I know
he won't. Poor daddy, he gets home so tired sometimes. He has just
started on the big tunnel and there is so much to do. I have been
helping him with his papers every night. But when Aunt Felicia's note
came--she isn't my real aunt, you know, but I have called her so ever
since I was a little girl--daddy insisted on my coming, and so I have
left him for just a few days. He will be so glad when I tell him I have
met one of his old friends." There was no question of her beauty, or
poise, or her naturalness.

"Been a lady all her life, my dear Major, and her mother before her,"
Miss Felicia said when I joined her afterward, and Miss Felicia knew.
"She is not like any of the young girls about, as you can see for
yourself. Look at her now," she whispered, with an approving nod of her
head.

Again my eyes sought the girl. The figure was willowy and graceful; the
shoulders sloping, the arms tapering to the wrists. The hair was jet
black--"Some Spanish blood somewhere," I suggested, but the dear lady
answered sharply, "Not a drop; French Huguenot, my dear Major, and I am
surprised you should have made such a mistake." This black hair parted
in the middle, lay close to her head--such a wealth and torrent of it;
even with tucking it behind her ears and gathering it in a coil in her
neck it seemed just ready to fall. The face was oval, the nose perfect,
the mouth never still for an instant, so full was it of curves and
twinkles and little quivers; the eyes big, absorbing, restful, with lazy
lids that lifted slowly and lay motionless as the wings of a resting
butterfly, the eyebrows full and exquisitely arched. Had you met her in
mantilla and high-heeled shoes, her fan half shading her face, you would
have declared, despite Miss Felicia's protest, that only the click of
the castanets was needed to send her whirling to their rhythm. Had she
tied that same mantilla close under her lovely chin, and passed you with
upturned eyes and trembling lips, you would have sworn that the Madonna
from the neighboring church had strayed from its frame in search of the
helpless and the unhappy; and had none of these disguises b