ice from other people. Indeed, he did not look
it. But he looked his name. You would know at once why the
cartoonists always represented him with the head of a buffalo; why,
gradually, people had forgotten that his first name was Jerome and
referred to him always as "Buffalo" Westabrook.

Like the buffalo, his head was big and powerful and emerged from the
midst of a shaggy mane. But it was the way in which it was set on
his tremendous shoulders that gave him his nickname. When he spoke
to you, he looked as if he were about to charge. And the glance of
his eyes, set far back of a huge nose, cut through you like a pair
of knives.

It surprised Maida very much when she found that people stood in awe
of her father. It had never occurred to her to be afraid of him.

"I've racked my brains to entertain her," "Buffalo" Westabrook went
on. "I've bought her every gimcrack that's made for children--her
nursery looks like a toy factory. I've bought her prize ponies,
prize dogs and prize cats--rabbits, guinea-pigs, dancing mice,
talking parrots, marmosets--there's a young menagerie at the place in
the Adirondacks. I've had a doll-house and a little theater built
for her at Pride's. She has her own carriage, her own automobile,
her own railroad car. She can have her own flying-machine if she
wants it. I've taken her off on trips. I've taken her to the theater
and the circus. I've had all kinds of nurses and governesses and
companions, but they've been mostly failures. Granny Flynn's the
best of the hired people, but of course Granny's old. I've had other
children come to stay with her. Selfish little brutes they all
turned out to be! They'd play with her toys and ignore her
completely. And this fall I brought her to Boston, hoping her
cousins would rouse her. But the Fairfaxes decided suddenly to go
abroad this winter. If she'd only express a desire for something,
I'd get it for her--if it were one of the moons of Jupiter."

"It isn't anything you can _give_ her," Dr. Pierce said impatiently;
"you must find something for her to _do_."

"Say, Billy, you're an observant little duck. Can't you tell us
what's the matter?" "Buffalo" Westabrook smiled down at the third
man of the party.

"The trouble with the child," Billy Potter said promptly, "is that
everything she's had has been 'prize.' Not that it's spoiled her at
all. Petronilla is as simple as a princess in a fairy-tale."

"Petronilla" was Billy Potter's pet-name for Mai