eyes closed against her will. How long she sat thus she did not know,
but in time there came to her a consciousness of whispering in the room
and a baby's laugh. Opening her eyes she saw a pretty picture--a young
girl tossing a baby into the air and catching it again, and the baby
cooing.

[Illustration: IMMEDIATELY MISS WINSHIP WAS BESIDE HER.]

Instantly the girl with the baby caught sight of Gloria as she stirred.

"And so you are awake. You looked so tired," said the girl.

Gloria straightened and arranged her hair. The many hairpins felt
uncomfortable.

The girl with the baby looked at her curiously.

"Why," she said, "I thought you wore your hair different." And then she
flushed. Her own hair was in a braid, and she flushed still more when,
glancing into a little mirror, she looked from her face to Gloria's. She
had put her own hair down into a braid to be like the girl Dinney had
told of. But how different they were! Instantly she realized that hers
was a face without round, girlish curves. But she did not speak of this.
She turned to Gloria and said in her quiet way:

"You shouldn't take it so hard--Sal's falling. We get used to such
things here." And she smoothed out Hunkie's dress as she sat down on the
window-sill, there being but one chair in the room. "And then when you
come right down to it," she said, "Sal will have the time of her life.
I just came from the hospital. She's bad broke, but they can mend her,