are all _right_, Miss Sheila. They're lookers. I guess I've
spoiled 'em some. They'll be crazy over you--sort of a noo pet in the
house, eh? I've wired to 'em. They must be hoppin' up and down like a
popper full of corn."

"And Mrs. Hudson?"

Sylvester grinned--the wrinkle cutting long and deep across his lip.
"Well, ma'am, she ain't the hoppin' kind."

A few minutes later Sheila discovered that emphatically she was not the
hopping kind. A great, bony woman with a wide, flat, handsome face, she
came along the station platform, kissed Sylvester with hard lips and
stared at Sheila ... the stony stare of her kind.

"Babe ran the Ford down, Sylly," she said in the harshest voice Sheila
had ever heard. "Where's the girl's trunk?"

Sylvester's sallow face reddened. He turned quickly to Sheila.

"Run over to the car yonder, Miss Sheila, and get used to Babe, while I
kind of take the edge off Momma."

Sheila did not run. She walked in a peculiar light-footed manner which
gave her the look of a proud deer.

"Momma" was taken firmly to the baggage-room, where, it would seem, the
edge was removed with difficulty, for Sheila waited in the motor with
Babe for half an hour.

Babe hopped. She hopped out of her seat at the wheel and shook Sheila's
hand and told her to "jump right in."

"Sit by me on the way home, Sheila." Babe had a tremendous voice. "And
leave the old folks to gossip on the back seat. Gee! you're different
from what I thought you'd be. Ain't you small, though? You've got no
form. Say, Millings will do lots for you. Isn't Pap a character, though?
Weren't you tickled the way he took you up? Your Poppa was a painter,
wasn't he? Can you make a picture of me? I've got a steady that would be
just wild if you could."

Sheila sat with hands clenched in her shabby muff and smiled her
moonlight smile. She was giddy with the intoxicating, heady air, with the
brilliant sunset light, with Babe's loud cordiality. She wanted
desperately to like Babe; she wanted even more desperately to be liked.
She was in an unimaginable panic, now.

Babe was a splendid young animal, handsome and round and rosy, her body
crowded into a bright-blue braided, fur-trimmed coat, her face crowded
into a tight, much-ornamented veil, her head with heavy chestnut hair,
crowded into a cherry-colored, velvet turban round which seemed to be
wrapped the tail of some large wild beast. Her hands were ready to burst
from yellow buckskin gloves; her