ion was utterly unexpected, and Mrs. Pickens answered with a
jest. "Certainly. Shall I count Dick as the babe whom you have been
teaching?"

"I wish you wouldn't think so much about Dick!" There was irritation in
the girl's tone and dropping her banter Mrs. Pickens gave assurance of
her willingness to be of any service. "I suppose you want me to speak
for your character," she went on, "and I can certainly answer for your
disposition. You're the easiest person to get along with I ever met. But
Bob's mother is the one to testify to your ability with children. You've
been a godsend to her this spring. How the child has waked up. He's much
brighter and more interesting than before you came."

Stirring a little in her chair, leaning against the window to look out
into the approaching night, Hertha made no answer to her friend's
praises and seemed to have forgotten the request that she had just made.
After a little she said slowly, "I had a brother----"

"_Had_ a brother? Why do you speak in the past? Nothing has happened to
him, has there?"

"No, oh, no, but Bob makes me think of him when he was little, when he
belonged to me. A little child belongs to you. Partly for that reason
I'd like to be with little children."

"I'll do what I can to help you, but why not get references also from
the South?"

The question was asked hesitatingly and with no small amount of
inquisitiveness. The mystery of Hertha's past, that mystery that so
deeply interested Dick, was growing in importance to his landlady.
Perhaps this evening in the friendly dark she might be able to probe it.
Despite her hope, she expected some monosyllabic reply followed by a
silence that would prevent a continuance of the subject. She was totally
unprepared for Hertha's frank answer.

"You can see," the girl said, "that I have no connections now in the
South. No one writes to me."

"Yes?" Mrs. Pickens ventured. Her voice was tender, sympathetic,
trembling with curiosity.

Hertha said nothing further but looked out where the lamps had been
lighted and glowed golden against the deep trees. Fearing lest she might
lose the confidential talk she was expecting, the older woman continued
gently: "I've often wondered what separated you from your people. Do you
want to tell me what it was?"

"Some one's sin."

The words were spoken into the night. The girl did not move her head as
the older woman, with a cry, came to her.

"Your birth?" she whispered.

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