"Do you like my pretty new shoes?"
"What's that got to do with it?" I demanded indignantly.
"Nothing, I guess," she said meekly.
This girl was full of mysteries. One great point in her favor was that she had a mother "at death's door." This appealed to me tremendously. It was so unusual.
"How's your mother?" I would ask her often, just for the pleasure of hearing her answer softly,
"She's at death's door, thank you."
She soon learned to skate much better, and I remember quite vividly still the January afternoon when as the darkness deepened a silvery moon appeared overhead. I had not skated with her for a week, but now we'd been skating for nearly an hour. One by one the others went home, and the plump girl turned at the kitchen door to call back to Eleanore tauntingly,
"You'll catch it, going home so late!"
"Never mind," said a gentle voice at my side, and round and round we skated. The moon grew steadily brighter. Still that soft steady clutch on my arm.
"Now you'd better go home," I said gruffly at last.