endless, meandering recital sprinkled with anti-climaxes.

"It's about a sweet young English girl whose father owned a tea estate
in Asia--or maybe Africa. But anyway, where it was hot, and there were a
lot of natives and snakes and centipedes. Her mother died and she was
sent back home to boarding-school when she was a tiny little thing. Her
father was quite bad. He drank and swore and smoked. The only thing that
kept him from being awfully bad, was the thought of his sweet little
golden-haired daughter in England."

"Well, what of it?" Patty inquired, politely suppressing a yawn. Rosalie
had a way of trailing off into golden-haired sentiment if one didn't
haul her up sharp.

"Just wait! I'm coming to it. When she was seventeen she went back to
India to take care of her father, but almost right off he got a
sunstroke and died. And in his death-bed he entrusted Rosamond--that was
her name--to his best friend to finish bringing up. So when Rosamond
went to live with her guardian, and took charge of his bungalow and made
it beautiful and homelike and comfortable--she wouldn't let him drink or
smoke or swear any more. And as he looked back over the past--"

"He was eaten with remorse at the thought of the wasted years," Patty
glibly supplied, "and wished that he had lived so as to be more worthy
of the sweet, womanly influence that had come into his wicked life."

"You've read it!" said Rosalie.

"Not that I know of," said Patty.

"Anyway," said Rosalie, with an air of challenge, "they fell in love and
were married--"

"And her father and mother, looking down from heaven, smiled a blessing
on the dear little daughter who had brought so much happiness to a
lonely heart?"

"Um--yes," agreed Rosalie, doubtfully.

There was no amount of sentiment that she would not swallow, but she
knew from mortifying experience that Patty was not equally voracious.

"It's a very touching story," Patty commented, "but where does Kid McCoy
come in?"

"Why, don't you see?" Rosalie's violet eyes were big with interest.
"It's exactly Kid's own story! I realized it the minute I saw the book,
and I had the _awfulest_ time making her read it. She made fun of it at
first, but after she'd really got into it, she appreciated the
resemblance. She says now it was the Hand of Fate."

"Kid's story? What _are_ you talking about?" Patty was commencing to be
interested.

"Kid has a wicked English guardian just like the Rosamond in the book.