ed her breath came in long, delicious
gasps through her half-parted lips. Presently she stooped over and
pinched her legs.

"My legs," she said, "same ones. And my cheeks and my hair"--the
latter was pulled with vigor--"and my feet and my hands--all me, and
in a taxi-cab going Christmas shopping and maybe to a marriage, and I
didn't know he was living last week! Father says I mustn't speak to
people I don't know, but how can you know them if you don't speak? I
was born lucky, and I'm so glad I'm living that if I was a rooster I'd
crow. Oh, Mr. Van, are you ready?"

The next few hours to Carmencita were the coming true of dreams that
had long been denied, and from one thrill to another she passed in a
delicious ecstasy which made pinching of some part of her body
continually necessary. While Van Landing dressed she waited in his
library, wandering in wide-eyed awe and on tiptoe from one part of the
room to the other, touching here and there with the tips of her
fingers a book or picture or piece of furniture, and presently in
front of a footstool she knelt down and closed her eyes.

Quickly, however, she opened them and, with head on the side, looked
around and listened. This wasn't a time to be seen. The silence
assuring, she again shut her eyes very tight and the palms of her
hands, uplifted, were pressed together.

"Please, dear God, I just want to thank you," she began. "It's awful
sudden and unexpected having a day like this, and I don't guess
to-morrow will be much, not a turkey Christmas or anything like that,
but to-day is grand. I'd say more, but some one is coming. Amen." And
with a scramble she was on her feet, the stool behind her, as Van
Landing came in the room.

The ride to the office through crowded streets was breathlessly
thrilling, and during it Carmencita did not speak. At the window of
the taxi she pressed her face so closely that the glass had
continually to be wiped lest the cloud made by her breath prevent her
seeing clearly; and, watching her, Van Landing smiled. What an odd,
elfish, wistful little face it was--keen, alert, intelligent, it
reflected every emotion that filled her, and her emotions were many.
In her long, ill-fitting coat and straw hat, in the worn shoes and
darned gloves, she was a study that puzzled and perplexed, and at
thought of her future he frowned. What became of them--these children
with little chance? Was it to try and learn and help that Frances was
living in thei