“When did it happen, dear little child, and how old were you?” asked Mrs. Hartwell-Jones softly.
“It was that next fall. I—I was hardly ten years old. Mrs. Drake was with us. She lived in the neighborhood and—and afterward she took me with her. I have been with her ever since,” and Letty sighed again.
“You poor, forlorn child!” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones tenderly. “What a melancholy life you have had!”
“Only since—since I lost my mother,” replied Letty quickly. “I was very happy before that.”
“Have you ever been to school?”
“Not very much. My mother taught me until she was not strong enough and then I went to school.”
“Did you like it?”
“No, ma’am. Not a bit. The other girls were horrid to me and wouldn’t make friends. At least the girls my own age wouldn’t. They said I was only a little circus girl. I wasn’t as far along in my lessons as they were, either, and had to go into a class with real little girls who thought I was stupid and made fun of me until I read aloud to them. Then they liked me better.
“But that was before mother died. After that I couldn’t bear to go to school any more that winter.”
“You poor, motherless little girl!” cried Mrs. Hartwell-Jones again, with a catch in her own voice. “And was there no joy—no spot of color in all that dull, dreary time?”