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Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress, "Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middle of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron and staring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blank and blind as living eyes can be. Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook.

Girlie's pale eyes opened so wide at the mention of Indians that Mary almost forgot her disappointment at being called away from the big girls, and proceeded to make them open still wider with her tales of life on the desert.

And it was precisely this ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent a sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it called out again: "Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and ear- piercing whistle: "Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And hoarsely, with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't yer?

"It kind of didn't occur to me," went on Sylvester, "that you'd care a whole lot about being ig-nored by Momma and Mr. and Mrs. Greely and Girlie. Say, Girlie's got to take her chance same's anybody else. Why don't you give Jim a jolt?" Sheila at this began to laugh. She caught her breath. She laughed and cried together. Sylvester patted her shoulder. "Poor kid! You're all in.

Girlie and Babe had it from the continual labor of their jaws. Every hope and longing and ambition in Girlie's heart centered upon this young man now complimenting her, but as he turned to her, she just stood there and looked up at him. Her jaws kept on moving slightly.

You know Arbuthnot says that 'instances of longevity are chiefly among the abstemious, and I certainly want to be longevous." A startled expression crept into Girlie's pale blue eyes, but she only sat back farther on the seat and tightened her clasp on Evangeline.

But when she had told all the interesting tales she could think of, cleared away the remains of the feast, and played with the doll until she was sick of the sight of it, she began to be heartily tired of Girlie's companionship. "She's such a baby," she said to herself, impatiently. "She doesn't know much more than a kitten." It seemed to her that the third long hour never would drag to an end.

He drew out of his pocket an envelope and held it away from Dickie. "You're trying to job me, Jim," but Dickie had his head coaxingly on one side and his face was pink. "I'll give it to you if you can guess the sender." "Babe?" "Wrong." "Girlie?" "Well, sir, it ain't Girlie's fist not the fist she uses when she drops me billy-doos." Dickie's eyes fell.

He was evidently very much impressed. "Say!" he ejaculated. "Is that the truth? Girlie's aiming kind of high." It was not easy to walk side by side on the rutted snow of the road. Sheila here slipped ahead of him and went on quickly along the middle rut where the horses' hoofs had beaten a pitted path. She looked back at him over her shoulder with a sort of malice. "Is it aiming high?" she said.

The indeterminate lips had shut hard, the long-lashed eyes had definitely put a guard upon their dreams. He was shockingly thin and colorless, however. Sheila dwelt painfully upon the sort of devastation she had wrought. Girlie's face, and Dickie's, and Jim's. A grieving pressure squeezed her heart; she lifted her chest with an effort on a stifled breath. "God! Sheila," said Sylvester harshly.