osition she was sitting
securely in the broad seat at the stern of the gliding boat, with
Madaline's arm around her, while her delighted fingers trailed through
the water, and her almost frightened gaze was fastened on Jennie's face.

"You are a real woman," she surprised her friends by declaring. "Do
you know I have not seen anyone like you to talk to since Loved One
went away. She was my mother," the child said solemnly.

"When did she die?" Jennie ventured.

"When I was eleven. I am thirteen now."

"And where did you live then?" pressed Cleo, feeling the time was
opportune for obtaining something of Mary's history.

"Oh, very, very far away, on an island off Central America," came the
surprising answer.

"Do your relatives live there?" inquired Grace, gently.

"No, they all died with the fever, that is, Loved One did, and daddy
was lost at sea. Reda thinks I had it, and she says I must not do
things like other girls or it will come back and kill me, but I don't
believe her now. Since I have known you girls I feel so much stronger
and wiser," she finished quaintly, with a significant toss of her head.

"The idea of telling you you were sick, and scaring you into it,"
indignantly spoke Jennie, in whom an instant dislike for the sinister
Reda had taken root. "A good way to make a child sick, I should say.
But what right has she over you? Is she a relative?"

"A relative?" and Mary almost laughed. "No, indeed. Nothing but an
old nurse, and not my real nurse either. You see, when granddaddy--as
I call him--had to leave the tropics, we had to take the first steamer
to get away, and I had no one to care for me after Loved One went, so
we just had to accept Reda. Then Janos is her brother, I guess, or
some sort of relative, and I could get along with her if he would stay
away. I can't tell you the whole story, for it is granddaddy's secret,
and I have promised him I would never, never tell anyone why we are up
here in the mountains, and why I can't use my own name!"

Again that veil dropped over the soft dark eyes. No one felt like
speaking then, for they noticed the girl swallowing hard to choke back
the sorrow that threatened to overcome her.

"Well, here we are almost in." It was Jennie who broke the silence, as
the boat, now out in the broad open lake, became one of the many
turning in at nightfall. "And there are the boys waiting to land us.
You don't suppose, Mary, that old woman will make tr