"Possibly," I answered. "He invariably barks and then swears at me, before luncheon."

"Billy or Arthur?" inquired Mercedes with interest.

I laughed.

"Have you seen either of the men this morning?" I asked. "I heard them go out early."

"They went to Crowell's," she answered. "I saw them off. They will not be back before tea, Billy told me."

I tried to look as if I had heard these plans before, and merely forgotten them for a moment.

"How nice!" I said, insincerely, "We will have a nice, long day together—with no disturbing male element," I added maliciously.

"I will like that too," said Mercedes, with great unexpectedness. "You never let me talk to you alone, Mavis, and" she finished with a funny little undercurrent of wistfulness in her pretty voice, "I have no friends my own age—women friends, I mean."

I had grown to be a little annoyed at my guest, but somehow, her simple statement opened up a vista before me which I had not dreamed existed. The child seemed, after all, hungry for companionship. It was out of the question that she should find it with her own indolent mother, who treated her as if she were half plaything and half infant; or with her father, whose attitude toward her was a curious commingling of affectionate despotism and anxiety: and the basis on which she met all her many men-satellites was not one guaranteed to produce comradeship.

I put my arm through hers and took her into the kitchen with me. After my inconsiderable domestic task was completed, we went out on the verandah together, armed with sewing. Mercedes sewed beautifully, an art which her early convent education had taught her, and I took a real aesthetic pleasure in watching the smooth, dark head, bent over the fine linen in her lap.