o, was entering
unknown worlds.

"Tell her--" Flame-spent, the eyes again opened and this time looked
at Miss White. "Tell her--why I--don't want-- They mean--to be
good--but--people like that--don't know how--people like us--"

Martha White thrust her handkerchief up her sleeve, cleared her
throat, and straightened her wide and rustling apron. "She's been
trying to tell me all day that she didn't want Nora to be put in an
orphan asylum, and yet there's nobody to take her. All her people
are too poor to add another child to their families." She came
closer and lowered her voice that it might reach no one but me, and
with her shoulders made movement toward the bed, with her hands to
the man and woman still close together in tearless silence in the
corner. "You know how people like that are. They judge everything
by the few cases that come within their knowledge, and--"

"Most of us do. What does she know about asylums that prejudices her
so?"

"Little, except she's come across some girls who came out of them who
have gone wrong, and she thinks it's because they were kept too shut
off from outside life, and told too little of temptations and real
truths and--and things like that. What she means is that she thinks
those who manage asylums and homes try to keep the girls innocent
through ignorance, and when they're turned out to go to work they
don't understand the dangers that are ahead. Some grown-ups forget
that young people crave young ways and pretty things and good times,
and that they've got to be taught about what they don't understand."

"Little Etta--Etta Blake was an orphan. She was like a bird--in a
cage. When she--got out-- If only--they had--told her--" The voice
from the bed was strangely stronger, and the fingers, still twisted
into mine, made feeble pressure.

I leaned closer. "Where is she? Where is Etta Blake? Where can I
find her?"

"You can't find her. It's--too late. We worked--at the same
place--once. And I tried--to make-- But she said--it was--too late."

The gasping voice trailed wearily and the face, turning from me, lay
still upon the pillow. Presently I saw Miss White start and come
closer. The short, quick breath had stopped.

At Mrs. Mundy's front door Selwyn, holding the sleeping child in his
arms, looked at me. "What are you going to do with her?" His voice
was uncertain, but in it there was not the disapproval I had expected
from the telling of my promis