ile the end-up, with its funny
little dedication to the immortals bound in leather that would live on
the library shelf and the ones hound in serge and corduroy that would
sit at the tables in reading-room, brought the storm of applause that
sounded like a tornado.

When I stopped being Father and came to my own self I was sitting
beside the Idol in the audience and watching Judge Luttrell slap
Father on the back and Mr. Chadwell laughing so that he and the
Colonel looked like jolly, bald-headed boys. Mr. Chadwell is as
disgracefully handsome as Pink, and doesn't look much older. And I
never saw my father's face look like it did to-night, and I had never
hoped to see him in a position that fitted him like the one on the
platform with Byrdsville's distinguished citizens. I ought to be a
happy girl, and I am.

Only Tony Luttrell troubles me, he is so quiet for him; and when he
walked home with me, he was as gentle and affectionate to me as if I
had been sick. Could something be the matter with me and I not know
it? I felt like I did when the secret was first stolen two weeks ago,
though Roxanne and the Idol seem to have forgotten all about it and
nobody else knows.

There is such a lovely moon out over the garden that I can't put out
the light and go to bed, though I saw Roxanne put hers out a half-hour
ago. I wonder why I ever started a record of myself and my friends
like I am doing? But I'm glad I did; for as I turn each leaf of you,
leather Louise, things seem to get brighter and happier for me, and as
I look at all these clean sheets in the future I wonder what I can
find to make them as lovely as the happenings on the others have been.
I'm thankful for the air that makes Mother sleep, and for the moral
surroundings for Father, and for the loving-kindness of my
fellow-men--girls and boys--to me. Yes, I realize that being beloved
is a novelty to me, but I know better than to think it will ever wear
off--the pleasures of it, I mean. Good-night!

CHAPTER VII

When you live in the city, or various cities, as I have done, you have
various things that distract your attention from the miracle that is
spreading all over the earth when the spring comes. Do such things
happen every spring, or is it just something that has unblinded my
eyes? Maybe I have really caught that rosy hue habit from Roxanne; but
the apple-trees this week have been almost too much for me. There are
great, gnarly, old apple-trees in every