night trying to imagine Amelia."

"Blue eyes and golden hair," Loraine chimed in dreamily, "and a little
dimple in her chin."

"You needn't any of you lie awake nights imagining. I can tell you," the
Talented One said. "She has blue eyes, but her hair is brown and the
dimples are in her cheeks. Her hair just waves a little away from the
parting--it is always parted. She sits very still, sewing patchwork--her
mother told me," added the Talented One quietly. "She said she wished
she knew how to paint so she could paint Amelia's picture. She told me
where she'd like to have it hung--here in the dining-room, between the
windows. Amelia'd always been very real, she said, but the picture would
make her realer."

"Did she ever say what kind of dresses Amelia wears?" asked Laura Ann
without looking up from her stirring.

"No, I never asked, but they must be white dresses, I think,--Amelia is
such an innocent little thing," laughed T.O. softly. It was odd how they
always laughed or talked softly when it was about little make-believe
Amelia.

The picnic was in the woods, in a lovely little spot Loraine had
discovered in her wanderings. A brook babbled noisily through the spot.
They spread their lunch at the foot of a forest giant and ate it
luxuriously to the tune the brook sang. It was hard to believe they had
ever been toilers in a great city.

"There never were any public schools," murmured Loraine, lying back and