Then She Took My Little Gift And After Making A Second Careful Curtsey Proceeded Slowly And Gravely On Her Way.

Undoubtedly all this unsmiling, deeply respectful manner was a mask, or we may go so far as to call it second nature, and was the result of living in a cottage in an agricultural district with adults or old people:

- Probably her grandmother was the poor little darling's model, and any big important-looking man she met was the lord of the manor!

What an amazing difference outwardly between the rustic and the city child of a society woman, accustomed to be addressed and joked with and caressed by scores of persons every day - her own people, friends, visitors, strangers! Such a child I met last summer at a west-end shop or emporium where women congregate in a colossal tea-room under a glass dome, with glass doors opening upon an acre of flat roof.

There, one afternoon, after drinking my tea I walked away to a good distance on the roof and sat down to smoke a cigarette, and presently saw a charming-looking child come dancing out from among the tea- drinkers. Round and round she whirled, heedless of the presence of all those people, happy and free and wild as a lamb running a race with itself on some green flowery down under the wide sky. And by-and-by she came near and was pirouetting round my chair, when I spoke to her, and congratulated her on having had a nice holiday at the seaside.

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