terested in your story and we are hungry for
the details. But not altogether out of mere curiosity. We hope to give you
aid in some way to make your situation better. Understand?"

"Oh, Mr. Gordon, I quite understand that," said the English girl seriously
and without smiling. "I never saw such friendly people as you are. And you
both strangers to me! If I were at home I couldn't find better friends, I
am sure."

"That's fine!" declared Uncle Dick. "It is exactly the way I want you to
feel. Betty and I are interested. Now suppose you sit down and tell us all
about it."

"Where shall I begin?" murmured the girl thoughtfully, hesitating.

"If I were you," returned Uncle Dick, with a smile, "I would begin at the
beginning."

"Oh, but that's so very far back!"

"Never mind that. One of the most foolish mistakes which I see in
educational methods is to give the children lessons in modern history
without any reference to ancient history which comes to them in higher
grades. Ancient history should be gone into first. Suppose, Ida, you begin
with ancient history."

"Before Ida Bellethorne was born, do you mean?" asked the English girl
doubtfully.

"Which Ida Bellethorne do you mean?" asked Mr. Gordon, while Betty stared.

"I was thinking of my beautiful black mare. The darling! She is seven
years old now, Mr. Gordon; but I think that in those seven years enough
has happened to me to make me feel three times seven years old."

"Go ahead, Ida," said the gentleman cheerfully. "Tell it in your own way."

Thus encouraged, the girl began, and she did tell it in her own way. But
it was not a brief way, and both Mr. Gordon and Betty asked questions and
that, too, increased the difficulty of Ida's telling her story.

She had been the only living child of Gwynne Bellethorne, who had been a
horse breeder and sometimes a turfman in one of the lower English
counties. She had been motherless since her third birthday. Her only
living relative was her father's sister, likewise Ida Bellethorne, who had
been estranged from her brother for several years and had made her own
way on the continent and later in America on the concert stage.

Ida, the present Ida, remembered seeing her aunt but once. She had come to
Bellethorne Park the very week the black mare was foaled. When they all
went out to see the little, awkward, kicking colt in the big box stall,
separated from its whinnying mother by a strong barred fence, the owner of
the st