what had
happened, sobbed out the agony of his little soul's despair. Sixth! He
had come in sixth! He had failed miserably in his championship. How she
must despise him--she who had sent him forth to victory! And yet how
'had it been possible? How had it been possible that other boys could
beat him? He was he. An indomitable personage. Some hideous injustice
guided human affairs. Why shouldn't he have won? He could not tell. But
he had not won. She had sent him forth to win. He had lost. He had come
in a sickening sixth. The disgrace devastated him.

Maisie Shepherd, interested in her child champion, sought him out and
easily found him under the beech tree. "Why, what is the matter?"

As he did not answer, she knelt by his side and put her hand on his
lean shoulder. "Tell me what has happened."

Again the celestial fragrance overspread his senses. He checked his
sobs and wiped his eyes with the back of his grubby hand. "Aw didn't
win," he moaned.

"Poor little chap," she said comfortingly. "Did you want to win so very
much?"

He got up and stared at her. "Yo' told me to win."

"So you ran for me?"

"Ay!"

She rose to her feet and looked down upon him, somewhat overwhelmed by
her responsibility. So in ancient days might a fair maiden have
regarded her knight who underwent entirely unnecessary batterings for
her sake. "Then for me you've won," she said. "I wish I could give you
a prize."

But what in the nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a
pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school
treat carry upon her person? She laughed in pretty embarrassment. "If I
gave you something quite useless, what would you do with it?"

"I 'u'd hide it safe, so 'ut nobody should see it," said Paul, thinking
of his precious cards.

"Wouldn't you show it to anybody?"

"By Gum!--" he checked himself suddenly. Such, he had learned, was not
Sunday-school language. "I wouldno' show it to a dog," said he.

Maisie Shepherd, aware of romantic foolishness, slipped a cornelian
heart from a thin gold chain round her neck. "It's all I can give you
for a prize, if you will have it."

If he would have it? The Koh-i-Noor' in his clutch (and a knowledge of
its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture. He was
speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word
spoken would have rung false. The boy gloated over his treasure; but
she did not know--how could she?--what it me