DEB. 203

“Fifteen !’’ repeated the young lady, standing up very
straight, and looking very sorry. ‘“ How long has she been
— like — that?”

“Born so,” said Deb’s mother. “She’s jest set in that
chair ever sence she’s ben big enough to set at all. Would
you try gum on these, miss ?”’

“But you never told me that you had a crippled child!”
The young lady said this quickly. ‘ You have washed for
me three years, and never told me that you had a crippled
child!”

“You never asked me, miss,” said Deb’s mother.

The young lady made no reply. She came and sat down
on the edge of Deb’s bed, close beside Deb’s chair. She

seemed to have forgotten all about her Cluny lace. She took
- Deb’s hand up between her two soft brown gloves, and her
long brown feathers drooped and touched Deb’s cheek. Deb
hardly breathed, the feathers and the gloves, and the swect
smells of scented woods, and the young lady’s sorry eyes —
such very sorry eyes !— were so close to the high chair.

“ Fifteen years!” repeated the young lady, very low. “In
that chair — and nobody ever — poor little girl, poor little
girl!”

What was the matter with the straight young lady? All
at once her bright brown feathers and her soft brown gloves
grew damp in little spots. Deb wondered very much over the
damp little spots.
~ “But you could ride!” said the young lady, suddenly.