mother. James never waits
for the lessons. I don't think he was to blame."

The woman's eyes were veiled with sudden mist. She drew the child close.
"Tell mother about it."

Betty Harris looked down, stroking her mother's sleeve. A little smile
of memory held her lips. "He was a beautiful man!" she said.

The mother waited, breathless.

"I was walking home, and I came to his shop--"

"To his shop!"

She nodded reassuringly. "His fruit-shop--and--oh, I forgot--" She
reached into the little bag at her side, tugging at something. "He gave
me these." She produced the round box and took off the lid, looking into
it with pleased eyes. "Aren't they beautiful?"

The mother bent blindly to it. "Pomegranates," she said. Her lips were
still a little white, but they smiled bravely with the child's pleasure.

"Pomegranates," said Betty, nodding. "That is what he called them. I
should like to taste one--" She was looking at them a little wistfully.

"We will have them for luncheon," said the mother. She had touched the
bell with quick decision.

"Marie"--she held out the box--"tell Nesmer to serve these with
luncheon."

"Am I to have luncheon with you, mother-dear?" The child's eyes were on
her mother's face.

"With me--yes." The reply was prompt--if a little tremulous.

The child sighed happily. "It is being a marvellous day," she said,
quaintly.

The mother smiled. "Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall
tell me about the wonderful man."

So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining
table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein
she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the
streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless
freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek--one
Achilles Alexandrakis by name--had heard strange tales of Greece and
Athens and the Parthenon--tales at the very mention of which her eyes
danced and her voice rippled.

And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the
child touched upon and flitted past. It had been part of the careful
rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant
attendance upon her was a body-guard--such as might wait upon a
princess. It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls
were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went
to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Sto