ying."

She was delicious with her theories and her seriousness. And she was
charming in the crisp blue gown that had been her uniform since the
beginning of Peggy's illness.

He laughed and leaned toward her. "Oh, Mistress Anne, Mistress Anne, how
much you have to learn."

She stood up. "Perhaps I know more than you think."

"Are you angry because I said that? But I love your arguments."

His frankness was irresistible; she could not take offense so she sat
down again.

"Perhaps," she said, hesitating, "you might understand better how I feel
if I told you about my Great-uncle Rodman Warfield. When he was very
young he went to Paris to study art, and he attracted much attention.
Then after a while he began to find the people interested him more than
pictures. You see we come from old Maryland stock. My grandmother,
Cynthia Warfield, was one of the proudest women in Carroll. But Uncle
Rodman doesn't believe in family pride, not the kind that sticks its nose
in the air; and so when he came back to America he resolved to devote his
talents to glorifying the humble. He lived among the poor and he painted
pictures of them. And then one day there was an accident. He saved a
woman from drowning between a ferry-boat and the slip, and he hurt his
back. There was a sort of paralysis that affected the nerves of his
hand--and he couldn't paint any more. He came to us--when I was a little
girl. My father was dead, and mother had a small income. We couldn't
afford servants, so mother sewed and Uncle Rod and I did the housework.
And it was he who tried to teach me that work is the one royal thing in
our lives."

"Where is he now?"

"When mother died our income was cut off, and--I had to leave him. He
could have a home with a cousin of ours and teach her children. I might
have stayed with her, but there was nothing for me to do. And we felt
that it was best for me to--find myself. So I came here. He writes to
me--every day----" She drew a long breath. "I don't think I could live
without letters from my Uncle Rod."

"So you are really a princess in disguise, and you would love to stick
your nose in the air, but you don't quite dare?"

"I shouldn't love to do anything snobbish."

"There is no use in pretending that you are humble when you are not. And
your Great-uncle Rodman is a dreamer. Life is what it is, not what we
want it to be."

"I like his dreams," she said, simply, "and I want to be as good as he
thinks I am."