e, don't you know,"
he plunged in, hurriedly.

"Mercy! What iss it the child iss talking about!"

There! wasn't she having one? Didn't she usually say "Mercy!" like
that when she was?

"That letter, you know--U. The one in the middle o' my name," Bobby
hastened on--"right prezac'ly in the middle of it. I wish"--but he
caught himself up with a jerk. It didn't seem best, after all, to
consult Olga now--not now, while she was having one. Better
wait--only, dear, dear, dear, how long he had waited a'ready!

It had not occurred to Bobby to consult his mother. They two were not
intimately acquainted, and naturally he felt shy.

Bobby's mother was very young and beautiful. He had seen her dressed
in a wondrous soft white dress once, with little specks of shiny
things burning on her bare throat, and ever since he had known what
angels look like.

There were reasons enough why Bobby seldom saw his mother. The house
was very big, and her room so far away from his;--that was one
reason. Then he always went to bed, and got up, and ate his meals
before she did.

There was another reason why he and the beautiful young mother did
not know each other very well, but even Olga had never explained that
one. Bobby had that ahead of him to find out,--poor Bobby! Some one
had called him Fire Face once at school, but the kind-hearted teacher
had never let it happen again.

At home, in the great empty house, the mirrors were all high up out
of reach, and in the nursery there had never been any at all. Bobby
had never looked at himself in a mirror. Of course he had seen
himself up to his chin--dear, yes--and admired his own little
straight legs often enough, and doubled up his little round arms to
hunt for his "muscle." In a quiet, unobtrusive way Bobby was rather
proud of himself. He had to be--there was no one else, you see. And
even at six, when there is so little else to do, one can put in
considerable time regarding one's legs and arms.

"I guess you don't call _those_ bow-legged legs, do you, Olga?" he
had exulted once, in an unguarded moment when he had been thinking of
Cleggy Munro's legs at school. "I guess you call those pretty
straight-up-'n'-down ones!" And the hard face of the old nurse had
suddenly softened in a strange, pleasant way, and for the one only
time that he could remember, Olga had taken Bobby in her arms and
kissed him.

"They're beautiful legs, that iss so," Olga had said, but she hadn't
been looking at