it grew late, the older baby grew
tired and cross. He wanted his mother, was jealous of the tiny one,
and finally he just howled. The young lady before me said a word to
her companion and went directly over.

"That kid, Miss Marley, was dirty and sticky beyond words, and she was
the daintiest, freshest, sweetest girl imaginable. But she smiled and
held out her arms and he just tumbled into them. She hugged the little
beggar close, never minding her pretty gown, and brought him back to
her seat. She seemed to know just what to do--took off his shoes,
loosened the neck of his dress and all that, then cuddled him down and
sang to him until he went to sleep and after. Her voice was as sweet
as yours, and she sang the very same thing, 'And Do You Ken Elsie
Marley'--I think she sang it twice or thrice."

Perhaps it was Elsie's fondness for children; perhaps it was because he
told the story so well; in any event, the girl was touched. And as
usual, to cover her feeling, she tried to smile, her dimples rather at
variance with the tears in her eyes.

He gazed at her curiously. "Wait, Miss Marley, that isn't all," he
exclaimed. "As I recalled the young lady, I saw her face only dimly.
Now do you know it suddenly comes to me that she had the largest,
deepest dimples I had ever seen, one in either cheek. And I remember
vowing then and there, in my youthful enthusiasm, that if ever I
attempted to paint Madonna she should have just such dimples; they
struck me as somehow significant, perhaps symbolic."

Elsie's heart was beating wildly.

"I wonder--could that have been your mother, Miss Marley?"

The girl could not speak for the tumult within her.

"It seems as if their name began with M, though it couldn't have been
Marley, else I should have noticed on account of the song," he went on
kindly, realizing her emotion. "May I ask what was your mother's
maiden name, Miss Marley?"

Quite upset, Elsie started to tell the truth; said Mi--and stopped
short.

"Middleton!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

"Pritchard," she said as quickly as she could get it out.

"_Pritchard?_" he repeated as if he must have heard wrong.

"Augusta Pritchard," the girl reiterated, her heart like a stone.

The artist was puzzled. But realizing that the loss of her mother
might have been so recent as to be still a painful subject, he
tactfully spoke of other things, cloaking his disappointment at not
being able to work out his problem to