Mildred's house. "Speaking of what I want to be taken for," she
said;--"I've been wondering ever since the other night what you
did take me for! You must have taken me for the sister of a
professional gambler, I'm afraid!"

Russell's look of kindness was the truth about him, she was to
discover; and he reassured her now by the promptness of his
friendly chuckle. "Then your young brother told you where I
found him, did he? I kept my face straight at the time, but I
laughed afterward--to myself. It struck me as original, to say
the least: his amusing himself with those darkies."

"Walter IS original," Alice said; and, having adopted this new
view of her brother's eccentricities, she impulsively went on to
make it more plausible. "He's a very odd boy, and I was afraid
you'd misunderstand. He tells wonderful 'darky stories,' and
he'll do anything to draw coloured people out and make them talk;
and that's what he was doing at Mildred's when you found him for
me--he says he wins their confidence by playing dice with them.
In the family we think he'll probably write about them some day.
He's rather literary."

"Are you?" Russell asked, smiling.

"I? Oh----" She paused, lifting both hands in a charming gesture
of helplessness. "Oh, I'm just--me!"

His glance followed the lightly waved hands with keen approval,
then rose to the lively and colourful face, with its hazel eyes,
its small and pretty nose, and the lip-caught smile which seemed