The child sighed happily. "It is being a marvellous day," she said,
quaintly.

The mother smiled. "Come and get ready for luncheon, and then you shall
tell me about the wonderful man."

So it came about that Betty Harris, seated across the dark, shining
table, told her mother, Mrs. Philip Harris, a happy adventure wherein
she, Betty Harris, who had never before set foot unattended in the
streets of Chicago, had wandered for an hour and more in careless
freedom, and straying at last into the shop of a marvellous Greek--one
Achilles Alexandrakis by name--had heard strange tales of Greece and
Athens and the Parthenon--tales at the very mention of which her eyes
danced and her voice rippled.

And her mother, listening across the table, trembled at the dangers the
child touched upon and flitted past. It had been part of the careful
rearing of Betty Harris that she should not guess that the constant
attendance upon her was a body-guard--such as might wait upon a
princess. It had never occurred to Betty Harris that other little girls
were not guarded from the moment they rose in the morning till they went
to bed at night, and that even at night Miss Stone slept within sound of
her breath. She had grown up happy and care-free, with no suspicion of
the danger that threatened the child of a marked millionaire. She did
not even know that her father was a very rich man--so protected had she
been. She was only a little more simple than most children of twelve.
And she met the world with straight, shining looks, speaking to rich and
poor with a kind of open simplicity that won the heart.