the truth came to her, the friendly,
powdered stars had been above her long enough to accustom her to
their winking; the tiny, tentative noises of the night had sounded
in her ears till they comforted and reassured her; the vast and
empty field stretches meant only freedom and exhilaration. In a
sudden delirium of joy she slipped between the bars of a rolling
meadow and ran at full speed down its long, grassy slope, her
nightgown streaming behind her, her slender, childish legs white as
ivory against the greenish-black all around her. Beside her bounded
the great cat with shining, gemlike eyes. They rolled down the last
reaches of the slope, and all the Milky Way wondered at them, but
never a sound broke the solemn quiet of the night: the ecstasy was
noiseless.

[Illustration: Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched
abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain.]

Her face buried in sweet clover, she panted, prone on the grass.

"Let's go right on, Rufus, and run away, and do just as we please!"
she whispered to the nestling cat. "If I can't do like the boys do,
I don't want to stay home--the fellows laugh at me! I'd rather be
whipped than sent to bed like a girl. I _won't_ be a young lady--I
_won't_!"

Rufus purred approvingly.

"If I only had some trousers!" she mourned, softly; "a boy can do
_anything_!"

Across the quiet night there cut a thin, shrill cry: a little,
fretful pipe that brought instantly before the mind some hushed,
white room with a shaded light and a tiny basket bed. Caroline sat
up and stared about her: such cries did not come from open fields.
Hardly a stone's throw from her there was a small knoll, and behind
it what might have been a large, projecting boulder suddenly flashed
into red light and showed itself for a dormer window; a cottage had
evidently hidden behind the little hill. Curiously Caroline
approached it and walked softly up the knoll.

Almost on the top she paused and peered into the unshaded window.
These householders had no fear of peeping neighbors, for only the
moon and the night moths found them out, and the simple bedroom was
framed like some old naive interior, realistic with the tremendous
realism of the Great Artist.

The high, old-fashioned footboard of the bed faced the dormer
window, and Caroline could see only the upper portion of the woman's
figure as she leaned over a small crib beside her, her heavy dark
hair falling across her cheek, and