kin' that maybe she could get somebody who would stay with
her without bein' chained up. Meanwhile it was to her interest to keep
little Margaret as young as possible.

"Margaret thought she was ten when she went to live with Magdalene, but
she soon learned that it was a mistake and she got to be only seven in
less'n half an hour. Magdalene put shorter dresses on her and kept her
in white and gave her shoes without any heels, and these little short
socks that show a foot or so of bare leg and which is indecent, if
fashionable.

"Margaret's birthdays kept gettin' farther and farther apart, and as
soon as the neighbours begun to notice that Margaret wasn't agin' like
everybody else, why, Magdalene would just pack up and go to a new place.

"She didn't go to school, but had private teachers, because it was in
the will that she was to be educated like a real lady. Any teacher who
thought Margaret was too far advanced for her age got fired the minute
it was spoke of, and pretty soon Margaret got onto it herself. She used
to tell teachers she liked to say that she was very backward in her
studies, and tell those she didn't like that Aunty Magdalene would be
dreadful pleased to hear that she was improvin' in her readin' and
'rithmetic and grammar.

"Meanwhile Nature was workin' in Margaret's interest and she was growin'
taller and taller every day. The short socks had to be took off because
people laughed so, and Magdalene had to let her braid her hair instead
of havin' it cut Dutch and tied with a ribbon. When she was eighteen,
she thought she was thirteen, and she was wearin' dresses that come to
her shoe tops, and her hair in one braid down her back, and dreadful
young hats and no jewels, though her pa had left her a small trunk full
of rubies and diamonds and pearls. Magdalene was wearin' the jewels
herself. They were movin' around pretty rapid about this time, and goin'
from city to city in order to find better teachers for 'the dear child'
as Magdalene used to call her.

[Sidenote: The Conductor]

"One day, soon after they'd gone to a new city, Margaret was goin' down
town to take her music lesson. She went alone because Magdalene was laid
up with a headache and wanted the house quiet. When the conductor come
along for the fare, Margaret was lookin' out of the window, and,
absent-minded like, she give him a penny instead of a nickel.

"The conductor give it back to her, and asked her if she was so young
she could