"Does he bite?"
"No; there's the trouble. Anybody can pet him."
Valerie laughed, turned over, and lay at length on her stomach in the grass, exploring the verdure for a four-leaf clover.
"I never yet found one," she said, cheerfully. "But then I've never before seen much grass except in the Park."
"Didn't you ever go to the country?"
"No. Mother was a widow and bedridden. We had a tiny income; I have it now. But it wasn't enough to take us to the country."
"Didn't you work?"
"I couldn't leave mother. Besides, she wished to educate me."
"Didn't you go to school?"
"Only a few months. We had father's books. We managed to buy a few more—or borrow them from the library. And that is how I was educated, Rita—in a room with a bedridden mother."