Belinda had consoled many homesick girls, but this was a different problem.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Don't you think it will be easier after a while?"
The small girl with the old face shook her head.
"No, it won't. It isn't in me to like all this. I'm so sorry, because Daddy wants me to be a lady. He said it was as hard for him to send me as it was for me to come, but that I couldn't learn to be a lady, with lots of money to spend, down there with only the boys and him. There wasn't any lady there on the ranch at all, except Mammy Lou, the cook, and she didn't have lots of money to spend, so she wasn't the kind he meant. I thought I'd come and try, but I didn't know it would be like this. I don't want to be a lady, Miss Carewe. I don't believe they can be very happy. I've seen them in the carriages and they don't look very happy. You're nice. I like you, and I'm most sure Daddy and Dick and the boys would like you, but then you haven't got lots of money, have you? And you were born up here, so you don't know any better, anyway. I'm going home."
The burst of confidence ended where it had begun. She was going home, and she was so firm in the faith that Belinda, listening, believed her.
"But if your father says no?"
The dark little face was quiet again, all save the great eyes.
"I'll have to go," said the Queer Little Thing slowly.
Four days later Miss Lucilla Ryder called the Youngest Teacher into the study.
"Miss Carewe, I'm puzzled about this little Miss Allen. I had a letter from her father this morning. He says she has written that she is very homesick and unhappy and doesn't want to stay. He feels badly about it, of course, but he very wisely leaves the matter in our hands—says he realises she'll have to be homesick and he'll have to be lonesome if she's to be made a lady. But he wants us to do all we can to make her contented. He very generously sends a check for five hundred dollars, which we are to use for any extra expense incurred in entertaining her and making her happy. Now I thought you might take her to the theatre and the art museum, and the—a—the aquarium, and introduce her to the pleasures and advantages of city life. She'll soon be all right."