ou could get close to. She saw that her mother was enjoying it as well.
Wasn't it rather monotonous for her at Mrs. Barrington's? At Laconia
there had been neighbors dropping in, some who had known her early life
and sympathized with her misfortunes, and here, no one. She was glad to
have been taken in this kindly family.

"Oh, won't you come often?" pleaded Claire. "I like you so much, and if
you could come some Saturday mamma and Edith might go out together. An
old lady does come in when they go to church, but she isn't any real
company. She hasn't any ideas. Don't you think old people get sort of
stupid?" Lilian laughed.

Miss Benson expressed a good deal of pleasure at meeting such an
ambitious girl and hoped to keep in touch with her for sometime; she
might be able to counsel her or perhaps direct her on her way.

"It has been just delightful," she said when they reached their own
rooms.

She did not go in to sing but read to her mother. Yes, she would try in
the future to share more of her life with the colorless one. She had
resolved to make the great sacrifice when she found she could not go on
with school, and lo, this had been the outcome. They were delightfully
sheltered, there were no hardships, only pin pricks and she would be
silly to mind those. There was a sudden commotion through the place on
Monday morning. Such glad bursts of welcome, such joyous laughter and
absolute peans of delight.

For Zaidee Crawford had come. She, Lilian, was not in it and she
wondered if at any time or in any place there would be such unalloyed
gladness at her coming.

A girl of fifteen, bewilderingly pretty in the changes that passed over
her mobile face. A complexion that was pink and pearl, golden hair that
was a mass of waves and shining rings that seemed to ray off sunshine
with every movement of the head that had a bird-like poise; a low broad
Clytie brow and eyes that were the loveliest violet color, sometimes
blue, sometimes the tenderest, most appealing gray. Her smile was
captivating, disarming. It played about her lips that shut with dimples
in the corners, it quivered in her eyes and made the whole face radiant.

Why Zaidee Crawford wasn't spoiled by the indulgence and adulation was
quite a mystery. She had been longed for before her birth--one brother
was seven the other nine years older. Major Crawford thought the tie
between father and daughter was one of the choicest of heaven's
blessings. He was proud