promised Marjorie, "but how very sad about your
sister. Would you mind telling me how it happened? Don't talk about it,
though, if you would rather not."

"I don't mind in the least," said Beverly, "but it was such a frightful
shock to my mother that we don't like to have her dwell on it any any
more than can be helped. My sister Barbara was in San Francisco with my
aunt at the time of the earthquake. She had been very ill with scarlet
fever in the winter, and the doctor had ordered a change for her. My
aunt was going to California for a few weeks, and offered to take
Barbara with her. Mother couldn't leave home, for she was taking care of
my grandmother, who was ill at the time, and I was away at school. So it
ended in my aunt and Barbara going by themselves. My aunt intended
taking a maid, but the one she had engaged disappointed her at the last
moment, and as all the railroad accommodations had been secured, she
decided to start, and trust to finding a suitable maid in San Francisco,
which was to be their first stopping place. They reached San Francisco,
and my aunt wrote my mother that she had engaged a very satisfactory
girl, and two days later came the earthquake."

Beverly paused abruptly, and Marjorie, her face full of sympathy, laid a
kind little hand on his arm.

"Don't tell me any more," she said, gently; "it must have been very
terrible."

"It was," said Beverly, sadly. "Part of the wall of the hotel where they
were staying fell in, and they were both instantly killed. We feared for
a time that my mother would never recover from the shock."

"And was the maid killed, too?" Marjorie asked. She was longing to hear
more, but did not like to ask too many questions.

"We never knew; you see, she was a stranger to us. My uncle advertised
in all the California papers, in the hope of finding her, and perhaps
learn more particulars, but no answer ever came. She was probably
killed, poor thing."

"Your mother spoke of her little girl this afternoon," said Marjorie;
"she said she would have been just about my age."

"Yes, she would have been fifteen this January. It is rather odd, but
when I saw you that first morning in the park you somehow reminded me of
Babs. She was such a jolly little girl. She was four years younger than
I, but there were only we two, and we were always chums."

There was a look of such genuine sorrow on the boy's face that impulsive
Marjorie held out her hand.

"I'm so sorry," she sa