ty. It is so pronounced."

"My dear Lyn, it is! She sometimes talks like a little darkey; but to my
certain knowledge there are ten small Southerners at the Saxe, of
assorted ages and sexes, waiting for adoption."

"And she may speak out, Betty. Her silence as to the past will disappear
when she has got over her fear and longing."

Betty looked more serious. "I doubt it. Not a word has passed her lips
here--of her mother or home. It has amazed me. She's the most unusual,
the most fascinating creature I ever saw, for her age. Brace is wild
about her--he wants me to keep her. But, Lyn, if she does break her
strange silence, it will be your big hour! Whatever Con is or isn't--and
sometimes I feel like hugging him, and again, like shaking him--he's
the tenderest man with women--not even excepting Brace--that I have ever
seen. It never has occurred to him to reason out how much you love
him--he's too busy loving you. But when he finds this out! Well, Lyn, it
makes me bow my head and speak low."

"Don't, Betty! Don't suggest pedestals again," Lynda pleaded.

"No pedestal, Lyn; no pedestal--but the real, splendid _you_ revealed at
last! And now--forget it, dear. Here comes lil' Ann."

The child tiptoed in with outstretched arms.

"The nest is made right soft," she whispered, "and now let me carry
Bobilink to--to the sleepy dreams."

"Where did you learn to carry babies?" Betty hazarded, testing the
silence. The small, dark face clouded; the fear-look crept to the large
eyes.

"I--I don't know," was the only reply, and Ann turned away--this time
toward Lynda!

"And suppose he never knows?" Lynda spoke with her lips pressed to Ann's
soft hair--the child was in her arms.

"Then you and Con will have something to begin heaven with." Betty's
eyes were wet. "We all have something we don't talk about much on
earth--we do not dare. Brace and I have our--baby!"

Two days later Lynda took Ann home. They went shopping first and the
child was dazzlingly excited. She forgot her restraint and shyness in
the fascinating delirium of telling what she wanted with a pretty sure
belief that she would get it. No wonder that she was taken out of
herself and broke upon Truedale's astonished gaze as quite a different
child from the one Lynda had described.

The brilliant little thing came into the hall with Lynda, her arms
filled with packages too precious to be consigned to other hands; her
eyes were dancing and her voice thrilling w