ttle girl
who was running across the playground to where three ladies were
standing.

The little girl caught the dress of one of the ladies, and came pulling
at her dress and bringing her across the ground to see the stone
chimney, and the little girl kept saying:

"Look, Mama! See, Mama! Isn't it a grand chimney? Won't it 'most hold
smoke?"

Bessie Bell stood still with her little hands--they were beginning to
be round pink little hands again, now--clasped in front of her and
wondered.

"See, Mama! Look, Mama!" cried the little girl.

"Why does she say: Mama?" asked Bessie Bell, because she just wondered,
and wondered--and she did not know.

"Because it is her Mama," said a child who had just brought two more
rocks to put on the chimney.

"Oh," said Bessie Bell.

That lady who was the little girl's Mama looked much as all the ladies
looked.

"Are all Ladies Mamas?" asked Bessie Bell.

She hoped the child who had brought the two rocks would not laugh, for
Bessie Bell knew she would cry if she did.

The little girl did not laugh at all. She was trying so carefully to
put the last rock on top of the stone chimney, she said: "No, Bessie
Bell: some are Mamas, and some are only just Ladies."

There. There it was again: Only-Just-Ladies.

Bessie Bell wondered how to tell which were Mamas, and which were
Ladies--just Ladies.

Very often after that day she watched those who passed the cabin where
she and Sister Helen Vincula lived, and wondered which were Mamas--

And which were Ladies.

There was no rule of old or young by which Bessie Bell could tell.

Nor was it as one could tell Sisters from Just-Ladies by a way of
dress. For Sisters, like Sister Helen Vincula, wore a soft white
around the face, and soft long black veils, and a small cross on the
breast of the dress: so that even had any not known the difference one
could easily have guessed.

But for Ladies and Mamas there were none of these differences.

But Bessie Bell looked and looked and wondered, but her eyes brought to
her no way of knowing.

Bessie Bell could at length think of only one way to find out the
difference, and that was to ask--to let her ears help her eyes to bring
to her some way of knowing.

One day, a dear old lady with white curls all around under her bonnet
stopped near the playground and called Bessie Bell to her and gave her
some chocolate candy, every piece of candy folded up in its own white
paper.

Bessie Bel