[Sidenote: Simply Barbara]

To Roger, she was very fair. He never thought of her crutches because
she had always been lame. She was simply Barbara, and Barbara needed
crutches. It had never occurred to him that she might in any way be
different, for he was not one of those restless souls who are forever
making people over to fit their own patterns.

"Why doesn't your father like to have me come here?" asked Roger,
irrelevantly.

"Why doesn't your mother like to have you come?" queried Barbara,
quickly on the defensive.

"No, but tell me. Please!"

"Father always goes to bed early."

"But not at eight o'clock. It was a quarter of eight when I came, and by
eight he was gone."

"It isn't you, Roger," she said, unwillingly; "it's anyone. I'm all he
has, and if I talk much to other people he feels as if I were being
taken away from him--that's all. It's natural, I suppose. You mustn't
mind him."

"But I wouldn't hurt him," returned Roger, softly; "you know that."

"I know."