en Lucy had
been Kara's special charge.

If Tory had been fascinated by the little girl's extraordinary beauty
in the past, she was more startled to-night. The room was lighted only
by candles and a single large lamp under a yellow shade.

Lucy wore a pale yellow dress of some filmy, soft material and a large
hat circled with a wreath of flowers.

She had removed her hat and held it as one would a large basket. Her
dark hair made a stiff aureole about her delicately cut face with its
pointed chin, large brilliantly black eyes and full red lips.

Then Tory was both startled and repelled by the younger girl's
expression.

She was staring at Kara with no suggestion of sympathy or affection;
instead, she looked shocked and frightened and even disdainful.

Kara was extending her hands toward the little girl with more
animation and pleasure than Tory had seen her reveal since her
accident.

And actually, with a faint shudder, Lucy was drawing away.

An impulse to seize the little girl by the shoulders and forcibly
thrust her out of the evergreen cabin assailed Tory.

She moved forward. In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, becoming
aware of Lucy's behavior, were endeavoring to conceal her rudeness.

"Kara, Lucy has been insisting each day that we bring her to see you.
We did not know at first that you had gone from the Gray House.
Afterwards Mr. Hammond was away for a short time and we were waiting
for him," Mrs. Hammond remarked, speaking hurriedly but with extreme
graciousness.

She was a pretty, exquisitely dressed woman of about thirty years with
light brown hair and eyes. She appeared an agreeable society woman but
without any especial force of character. Evidently if she cared a
great deal for Lucy, the little girl in time would have small
difficulty in having her own way.

This would not be equally true with Mr. Hammond.

At present he was divided by annoyance with his adopted daughter and a
kind of puzzled curiosity.

He was staring about the gay room filled with girls and then at the
figure in the wheeled chair.

Kara appeared to be interested in no one save Lucy.

Now as the child shrank away from her, her thin hands dropped in her
lap, her face looked whiter and her gray eyes with the heavy dark
lashes grew sadder and more wistful.

A little murmur, not actually voiced and yet capable of being heard,
ran through the room.

This time Lucy must have understood the antagonism among the group of