No; not that. Never that! He held his small head high, and his lips
set; but he was a boy, after all, and his voice, to cover the
embarrassment, took on a tone of lofty superiority.

"Nobody ever does see her but me," he asserted. "They'd like to, but
they don't."

"Why don't they?"

Verily, this was a persistent child. The boy was in for complete
surrender, and he made it.

"She ain't a little girl like you," he explained, briefly. "She
doesn't have any home, and I don't know where she comes from--heaven,
maybe," he hazarded, desperately, as a sort of "When in doubt, play
trumps." "But she comes, an' no one but me sees her, an' we play."

"Huh!" This without enthusiasm from Margaret Hamilton Perry. She eyed
him remotely for a moment. Then, with an effort at understanding, she
spoke again.

"I shouldn't think that would be very much fun," she said, candidly.
"Just pretendin' there's a little girl when there ain't! I should
think it would be lots nicer--" She hesitated, a sense of delicacy
restraining her from making the point she so obviously had in mind.

"Anyhow," she added, handsomely, "I'll like her an' play with her if
you do."

Raymond Mortimer was relieved but doubtful. Memories of the extreme