The little girl had beautiful eyes.

The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years
old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all
the eleven years of her life.

The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes,
with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house
did not stand far back from the street. The little girl could see a
generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under
shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and
supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did not have supper, they
dined at night, like the Everards. To-night mother and father were
dining with the Everards, and the little girl had plans of her own.

Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was
dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights
lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but
mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and
you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful
hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black
this summer, with shiny spangles--a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone
while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'.

There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was old because his hair was
white, and his wife, who wore even more beautiful clothes than mother.
She had heard her father say that the Colonel had made the town, and she
had heard Norah, the cook, say that he owned the town. She had an idea
that these two things were not quite the same, though they sounded
alike, for father was fond of the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any
rate, he was president of the bank--father and Norah agreed about
that--and he lived in a house at the edge of the town, in what used to
be a part of Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflowering there, but
now nobody could.

The house was ugly, with things sticking out all over it, towers and
balconies and cupolas, and it was the little girl's twin. She was born
the year the Everards settled in Green River.

"And you're marked with it," Norah said, in one of their serious talks,
when Mollie, the second girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to
themselves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and allowing her
unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from the jar. "Marked with it, Miss
Judy."

"What?"

"That hous