t be a doll!"

Two days later the morning mail brought a small parcel for Miss Patty
Wyatt. She opened it under her desk in geometry class. Buried in
jeweler's cotton she found a gold linked bracelet that fastened with a
padlock in the shape of a heart. On the back of one of Uncle Bobby's
cards was written:--

"This is your heart. Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the
key."

Patty deflected Rosalie as she was turning into French and privately
exhibited the bracelet with pride.

Rosalie regarded it with sentimental interest.

"What has he done with the key?" she wondered.

"I s'pose," said Patty, "he's got it in his pocket."

"How awfully romantic!"

"It sounds sort of romantic," Patty agreed with the suggestion of a
sigh. "But it isn't really. He's thirty years old, and beginning to be
bald."

IX

The Reformation of Kid McCoy

Miss McCoy, of Texas, had been subjected to the softening influences of
St. Ursula's School for three years, without any perceptible result. She
was the toughest little tomboy that was ever received--and retained--in
a respectable-boarding-school.

"Margarite" was the name her parents had chosen, when the itinerant
bishop made his quarterly visit to the mining-camp where she happened to
be born. It was the name still used by her teachers, and on the written
reports that were mailed monthly to her Texas guardian. But "Kid" was
the more appropriate name that the cowboys on the ranch had given her;
and "Kid" she remained at St. Ursula's, in spite of the distressed
expostulation of the ladies in charge.

Kid's childhood had been picturesque to a degree rarely found outside
the pages of a Nick Carter novel. She had possessed an adventurous
father, who drifted from mining-camp to mining-camp, making fortunes and
losing them. She had cut her teeth on a poker chip, and drunk her milk
from a champagne glass. Her father had died--quite opportunely--while
his latest fortune was at its height, and had left his little daughter
to the guardianship of an English friend who lived in Texas. The next
three turbulent years of her life were spent on a cattle range with
"Guardie," and the ensuing three in the quiet confines of St. Ursula's.

The guardian had brought her himself, and after an earnest conference
with the Dowager, had left her behind to be molded by the culture of the
East. But so far, the culture of the East had left her untouched. If any
molding had taken place,