ughter," said Mrs. Sherman, opening her
trunk to take out another white dress. Lloyd was working herself up into a
white heat. "Put yourself in Fidelia's place, and think how she has always
been left to the care of servants, or of a governess who neglected her.
Think how much help you have had in trying to control your temper, and how
little you have had to provoke it. Suppose you had Howell and Henderson
always tagging after you to tease and annoy you, and that I had always
been too busy with my own affairs to take any interest in you, except to
punish you when I was exasperated by the tales that you told of each
other. Wouldn't that have made a difference in your manners?"

"Y-yes," acknowledged Lloyd, slowly. Then, after a moment's silence, she
broke out again. "I might have forgiven her if only she hadn't laughed at
me. Whenevah I think of that I want to shake her. If I live to be a
hundred yeahs old, I can nevah think of Fidelia Sattawhite, without
remembahin' the mean little way she laughed!"

"What kind of a memory are you leaving behind you?" suggested Mrs.
Sherman, touching the little ring on Lloyd's finger that had been her
talisman since the house party. "Will it be a Road of the Loving Heart?"

Lloyd hesitated. "No," she acknowledged, frankly. "Of co'se when I stop to
think, I do want to leave that kind of a memory for everybody. I'd hate to
think that when I died, there'd be even one person who had cause to say
ugly things about me, even Fidelia. But just now, mothah, honestly when I
remembah how she _laughed_, I feel that I must be as mean to her as she is
to me. I can't help it."

Mrs. Sherman made no answer, but turned to her own dressing, and presently
Lloyd kissed her, and went slowly down-stairs to find Hero. He was no
longer dreaming in peace. Two restless boys cooped up in the narrow limits
of the hotel, and burning with a desire to be amused, had discovered him
through the crack of the door, and immediately pounced upon him.

"Aw, ain't he nice!" exclaimed Henny, stroking the shaggy back with a
dirty little hand. Howl felt in his blouse, hoping to find some crumb left
of the stock of provisions stored away at lunch-time.

"Feel there, Henny," he commanded, backing up to his little brother, and
humping his shoulders. "Ain't that a cooky slipped around to the back of
my blouse? Put your hand up and feel."

Henny obligingly explored the back of his brother's blouse, and fished out
the last cooky