u
decide to remain and live near us. Oh, Amy, if you only knew how I try
not to think of the possibility of your going away from us--to think
that when you do go, it means that I may never see you again."

"I do not want to go away, Marie. I have told you the story of my life,
and how very unhappy I was in my girlhood--an orphan without a friend in
the world except my aunt, who resented my orphanage, and treated me as
'a thorn in the flesh,' but I did not tell you that until I met you I
never had a girl or woman friend in all my life. And now I feel that as
I have found one, I cannot sever myself from her, now that my husband is
dead and I and the babe are alone in the world."

Marie Raymond passed her arms around her friend's waist. "Amy, dear,
_do_ stay in Samoa. I, too, have no woman friend except some of my
mother's people--who would give their lives for me. But I am not a white
woman. My mother's blood--of which I _am_ proud--is in my veins, and
when I was at school in Australia, it used to cut me to the heart to
have to submit to insults from girls who took a delight in torturing and
harassing me because of it. One day I lost control of myself; I heard
them whispering something about 'the wild girl from the woods,' and I
told them that my mother could trace her descent back for five hundred
years in an unbroken line, whilst I was quite certain none of them would
like to say who their grandfathers were. My words told, for there were
really five or six girls in the school who had the convict taint. I was
called before the principal, and asked to apologise. I refused, and said
that I had only said openly and under the greatest provocation what more
than a dozen other girls had told me!"

"How did it end?"

"In mutual apologies, and peace was restored. But I was never happy
there--I loathe the memory of my school days, and was glad to come back
to Samoa."

"Neither were my English school days happy, but I even liked being at
school in preference to staying with my aunt. I hated the thought of
going to her for the holidays. She was a narrow-minded, selfish woman--a
clergyman's widow, and seemed to take a delight in mortifying me by
continually reminding me that all the money left by my father was
L500, which would just pay for my education and no more. 'When you are
eighteen,' she would say, 'you must not expect a home with me. Other
girls go out as companions; you must do the same. Therefore try and fit
yourself