It was best that she should ask, and then she would surely know.

So she asked: ``Are vou a Lady, ma'am?''

``I hope so, little girl,'' the lady said.

``I thought, maybe, you were a Sister,'' said Bessie Bell.

``No,'' said the lady.

``Like Sister Mary Felice, and Sister Angela, and Sister Helen
Vincula,'' said Bessie Bell.

``No,'' said the lady.

``Are you a Mama, then?'' asked Bessie Bell.

The lady looked as if she were going to cry.

But Bessie Bell could see nothing to cry about. The band was still
playing ever so gaily, and all the little children looked so
beautiful and so happy, all playing and running hither and thither
on the sawdust walks, that it was good just to look at them.

But on the instant Bessie Bell remembered how sorrowful it was to
cry when you could not understand things, so she quickly reached out
her little pink hand and laid it on the lady's hand--just because
she knew how sorrowful it felt to feel like crying and not to know.